New York Ballot Redesign

A redesign of the New York State ballot. Three (3) versions were created to be more voter-friendly. This project was a pursuit of discovering why the ballot exists in its current condition and what I can do to make it more user friendly.

3 concepts

3 ballot designs were created with varying weight on legality and best design practice.

Good idea, bad execution

The existing ballot tried to be more inclusive, but poor design constraints created confusion.

In good company

There is a lot of research around ballot design and was included in all my concepts.

Many different personas

Voters, candidates, parties, representatives, and ballot companies must all be considered in the design.

How it started

My roommate and I voted absentee for the November 2018 election. When we looked at both of our ballots, mine from Texas, and hers from New York, we were shocked at the starkly different styles and methods that our precincts used to elect officials. The Texas ballot has plenty of room for improvement, but I found my roommate’s ballot particularly troubling.

My confusion

I had a difficult time understanding how this ballot worked, what different symbols meant, why candidate’s names were listed more than once, why it looked like the same candidate was representing different parties, why a candidate could be listed multiple times if they’re running unopposed, and why the ballot was so compressed.

What to do?

The poor design of the ballot made me wonder how reliable the results could be. I decided to learn more about why the official ballot is so difficult to navigate, including what the New York law dictates, and what design practices I could implement to improve the voter experience.

Research

Around the time I decided to pursue this project, there was an interview on the NPR show All Things Considered about confusing ballot design. During that segment I learned about the Center for Civic Design (CCD), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving ballots and voter abilities across the country. I reached out to them, and they pointed me to a Medium article with many resources to begin my research.

Electoral fusion

Around the time I decided to pursue this project, there was an interview on the NPR show All Things Considered about confusing ballot design. During that segment I learned about the Center for Civic Design (CCD), a non-profit organization dedicated to improving ballots and voter abilities across the country. I reached out to them, and they pointed me to a Medium article with many resources to begin my research.

Federal guidance

The CCD’s website has Field Guides for the many different aspects concerning the voting process, one of which is the ballot design itself. I learned about the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which established the federal Election Assistance Commision (EAC) in an attempt to bring the country to more modern voting methods and techniques and provide guidance and standardization to the states on how they conduct their elections. The EAC published a report in 2007 on the Effect Designs for Administration of Federal Elections, with Chapter 3 covering Optical Scan Ballots (aka paper).

New York efforts

I then turned my attention to the specific laws for the State of New York. I read about a report from the Comptroller on Voting Reform in New York City, which covers updates to many aspects of the voting process, including ballot design, and the New York Board of Elections proposal for 2018, which repeals some of the more antiquated laws. This report also mentions enacting the Voter Friendly Ballot Act, which also repeals antiquated laws, updates current laws, and adds new laws to reflect our current technology. Assembly Bill A9607** enacts the Voter Friendly Ballot Act and has passed the State Assembly and is currently in review by the State Senate, as of January 9, 2019.

Constraints

Before designing any ballot, I imposed the following restrictions on myself.

  • Must comply with all current and/or upcoming laws
  • Utilize best design practices
  • I will be using the Arial font family because it is a standard sans-serif I already have. However, I would recommend using the ClearviewADA font family in the future.
  • All current candidates, their offices, their parties, and any other information on the current ballot must remain
  • Scope is limited to the physical ballot (i.e. paper) and not digital (I don't have access to that resource)
  • Greyscale
  • Paper cannot be any bigger that the latest ballot
Translating Lawyer-speak
Consolidating Notes
Significant Legal Changes

Results

From the sketch, I chose to create 3 new designs weighing the state's legal requirements against good design practices. The content is from an original November 6, 2018 New York Orange County ballot, which I’m calling the “current ballot”.

Unless otherwise noted, all these ballots follow the requirements set forth by Assembly Bill A9607 and EAC recommendations pertaining to ballot design.

Version 1
Version 2
Version 3