In today's local paper here on the Space Coast of Florida, an
elementary school teacher divided her 4th grade language arts class of
varied abilities into 3 distinct groups of 11 students. Each group
was asked to vote using the butterfly ballot now being questioned.
One group was asked to vote for Gore, the second for Bush, and lastly
for Buchanan. Without exception all the kids marked the ballots
correctly. A couple of days ago, the newspaper published another
similar study of 77 elementary school kids again with the same
results. Interestingly, the paper endorsed V.P. Gore and supports a
recount.
On 14 Nov 2000 10:04:45 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bob Hayden)
wrote:
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>Subject: Fwd: Butterfly ballots
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>Bob Smith, president-elect of the BCASA, forwarded this timely analysis
>that might be interesting to BCASA members. -- Tom]
>
>
>Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2000 17:11:26 -0700
>Reply-To: Structural Equation Modeling Discussion Group <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sender: Structural Equation Modeling Discussion Group <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: rozeboom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Butterfly ballots
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Since the voting-confusion issue has surfaced on Semnet, some of you may
>be interested in the following information, posted locally on our Univ. of
>Alberta
>psychology department's LAN, summarizing research done on this
>ballot-confusion
>issue by a staff member, Robert Sinclair, in amazingly fast response time.
>
> Bill R.
>
>
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>The Butterfly Ballot Causes Confusion and Systematic Errors in Voting Behavior
>Robert C Sinclair
>University of Alberta
>Melvin M Mark
>The Pennsylvania State University
>Sean E Moore, Carrie A Lavis, Alexander S Soldat
>University of Alberta
>
>Two experiments investigated confusion and bias caused by the butterfly
>ballot format used in Palm Beach County in the 2000 US presidential
>election. In Study 1, Canadian students voted for Prime Minister of Canada
>on a single-column or butterfly ballot. They rated the butterfly ballot as
>significantly more confusing than the single-column format; however, they
>made no voting errors. Study 2 replicated the confusion effect with a
>nonstudent sample. Of greater importance, participants made errors only on
>the butterfly ballot. The butterfly ballot causes confusion and systematic
>errors in voting.
>
> The issue of systematic bias as a result of ballot format has
>become the focus of much controversy surrounding the outcome of the recent
>presidential election in the United States. Specifically, people have
>argued that the format of the ballot in Palm Beach County led to confusion
>and caused people who intended to vote for Al Gore to mistakenly cast votes
>for Pat Buchanan or punch two holes resulting in a voided ballot. We
>conducted two experimental studies to address this issue.
> On Wednesday, November 8, 2000 (the day after the presidential
>election), we had Canadian college students vote for Prime Minister of
>Canada using a single-column ballot format or a dual-column, butterfly
>format (analogous to the Palm Beach County-style ballot). We expected that
>students would rate the butterfly style as more confusing than the
>single-column format. However, it was unclear whether students, who are
>familiar with confusing optical scoring forms, would make errors on the
>ballot.
>Participants
> Participants were 324 introductory psychology students from two
>classes at University of Alberta. All were volunteers who participated in
>order to partially fulfill a course requirement.
>Procedure
> Ballot Construction. The ballots contained the names of the
>leaders of 10 Canadian political parties and space for a write in
>candidate. One ballot used a single-column format. The second was designed
>to emulate the dual-column, butterfly format used in Palm Beach County (at
>the time this study was conducted, to the investigators knowledge the
>actual ballot was not available on the web or in print media, and the
>ballot was constructed after seeing it displayed for a brief period on
>CNN). The butterfly ballot was designed so that the leaders of the 2
>predominant parties appeared in the first and second positions in the first
>column. Specifically, Stockwell Day, leader of the Canadian Alliance Party,
>was in the first position on the ballot, corresponding to George Bush on
>the Palm Beach County ballot, and Jean Chretien, leader of the Liberal
>Party of Canada, was in the second position, corresponding to Al Gore. The
>leader of a third party, expected to receive few votes, was the first name
>to appear in the second column. Specifically, Joe Clark, leader of the
>Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, was in the position on the ballot
>corresponding to Pat Buchanan on the Palm Beach County ballot. The
>remaining candidates were also from parties expected to receive few votes.
> The data were collected in large classrooms at University of
>Alberta at the beginning of class. Participants were told that we were
>interested in political issues. They were told that we were holding a mock
>election for Prime Minister of Canada (there was, conveniently, a federal
>election in Canada within 2 weeks following our data collection).
>Participants were randomly assigned to receive one of the two ballot
>formats. They were asked to vote for Prime Minister by darkening the circle
>beside the preferred candidate s name. Upon turning to the next page, they
>were asked to report the degree to which the ballot was confusing (using 2
>items on 7-point scales, with high scores indicating greater confusion),
>and to write out who they had intended to vote for on the previous page.
>Finally, participants were debriefed.
>
> The mean of the two confusion items formed an index of confusion
>(Cronbach s alpha = .96). Participants in the butterfly format condition (M
>= 3.69) rated the ballot as significantly more confusing than did
>participants in the single-column format condition (M = 2.14), t(322) =
>8.23, p < .0001. No students made errors on the ballots.
>
> The results of Study 1 demonstrate that the Palm Beach
>County-style ballot is perceived as significantly more confusing that the
>single-column ballot. Generally, of course, greater confusion is likely to
>lead to a higher error rate. This was not the case in Study 1; however, we
>were not surprised by the lack of errors given that our sample involved
>college students who are quite skilled at completing confusing optical
>scoring sheets. Thus, we decided to move our data collection off campus and
>conduct a second study.
>Participants
> Participants were 116 people recruited in a large shopping mall in
>Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. There were 51 males and 62 females (three
>respondents failed to report their gender). The mean age was 51.10 years
>(sd = 19.19, range = 19-86; six respondents failed to report their age).
>
>Procedure
> Ballot Construction. The ballots were designed in the same manner
>as described above. However, by Thursday, November 9, 2000, we were able to
>view, in detail, the Palm Beach County ballot. Thus, the butterfly ballot
>was in exactly the same format as that used in Palm Beach County (with the
>exception that we did not use punch holes).
> Participants were approached individually at a mock polling
>station set up in a busy shopping mall and asked to participate in a
>Political Issues survey being conducted at the University of Alberta. They
>were told that we were holding a mock election for Prime Minister of
>Canada. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two ballot
>formats and were directed to one of two polling booths. They voted for
>Prime Minister (as above). After turning the page in their ballot, they
>reported the degree to which the ballot was confusing (again, on 2 items on
>7-point scales, with high scores indicating greater confusion), wrote out
>who they had intended to vote for on the previous page, reported their
>gender, age, and ethnic background, and placed their ballots in a ballot
>box. Finally, participants were given a written debriefing page describing
>the basis for the study and were offered a piece of candy.
>Confusion Ratings
> The mean of the two confusion measures served as an index of
>confusion (Cronbach s alpha = .81). The butterfly ballot was rated as
>significantly more confusing (M = 3.44) than the single-column ballot (M =
>2.28), t(110) = 3.17, p < .003.
>
>Errors
> We computed errors as a function of ballot type. There were 4
>errors, all of which occurred in the butterfly format, likelihood ratio
>X2(1) = 5.27, p < .03. Interestingly, 3 of the 4 errors occurred for the
>candidate who was in the same position on the butterfly ballot as was Al
>Gore on the Palm Beach County ballot. This candidate s votes were
>unintentionally given to the candidate who was in the same position as Pat
>Buchanan on our butterfly ballot. Thus, the results suggest that the
>butterfly ballot, as used in Palm Beach County, does result in systematic
>errors.
> Both Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate that the butterfly ballot used in
>Palm Beach County Florida is significantly more confusing than a
>single-column ballot. Moreover, Study 2 demonstrates that the Palm Beach
>County-style ballot systematically causes errors in voting behavior. These
>findings call into question the validity of the results from Palm Beach
>County in the 2000 US presidential election. With the ballot style in use
>there, vote counts will systematically vary from the intention of the
>electorate. In addition, the current findings may underestimate the
>magnitude of bias. With a punch hole voting system, imperfect alignment of
>a ballot in the voting machine might increase the likelihood of errors with
>a butterfly ballot, given the proximity of punch holes corresponding to the
>two columns. These findings are also likely to underestimate the bias
>because the candidate in the first position on our butterfly ballot
>(analogous to Bush) received 49.1% of the vote in Study 2 and no errors
>occurred in this position (the candidate in the second
>position corresponding to Gore received 21.4% of the vote and the
>remaining 8 candidates shared 29.5%).
>It is not clear whether a biasing ballot format does or should have legal
>standing in adjudicating disputes after an election. On the other hand,
>given the centrality of elections to the democratic process, it seems
>remarkable that biasing formats continue to be used. Low cost application
>of social science theory and methods could help avoid such controversies in
>the future.
>
>Acknowledgements
> This research was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities
>Research Council of Canada operating grant to Robert C Sinclair. We thank
>Sheree Kwong See for her assistance and Kelly Sinclair for comments on a
>previous draft of this manuscript. Finally, we thank the administrators of
>Bonnie Doon Shopping Centre for providing us with the space needed to
>conduct Study 2.
>
>
>***********************************************************************
>Robert C Sinclair office: (780) 492-3822
>Associate Professor home: (780) 436-0473
>Department of Psychology fax: (780) 492-1768
>P-343 Bio Sci messages: (780) 492-5215
>University of Alberta
>Edmonton, AB T6G 2E9
>
>http://www.psych.ualberta.ca/people/sinclair.html
>
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>--
>
>
> _
> | | Robert W. Hayden
> | | Work: Department of Mathematics
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