More on the supposedly confusing Ohio absentee ballot:

My former student Patrick Lewis writes:

Took four pics of the absentee ballot today down at the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. I also have the absentee voter booklet (but not the absentee ballot itself) in my possession. I’m waiting on our tech people to pull the pics off the digital camera . . . .

The conclusion: the Cuyahoga County absentee ballot is not significantly confusing. It’s possible someone might get thrown by the user-unfriendly layout of the ballot card (it’s the same card you shove in the voting machine), but I highly doubt that many people will be lining arrows up to cards.

Why do I think that?

1. The ballot is 12″ long and roughly 4″ wide (so, just a bit longer than a standard #10 envelope), whereas the booklet (that contains the list of candidates and the alleged arrows) is 5″ x 7″. I doubt that most ordinary people would attempt to line up a multi-page booklet with a single sheet ballot card, especially when the card is of a radically different shape and size, and the layout of the card doesn’t match the layout of the booklet.

2. There is a cover page to the ballot, and on the second page (behind the cover page) is a sheet of instructions that clearly state to use the number on the ballot. The instruction sheet makes no mention of the arrow whatsoever. Most ordinary people are smart enough to figure out “to vote for #2, punch #2.”

3. It would become immediately obvious to any voter that he or she is doing it wrong because, on 3/4 of the booklets, a higher-numbered choice goes above a lower-numbered choice for the Presidential ballot, whereas on the actual ballot card, the numbers are sequential. The Cuyahoga County ballot cycles the candidates for the different elections. For example, on my booklet, the list of Presidential candidates are:

DISQUALIFIED / DISQUALIFIED (I imagine that used to be Ralph Nader)
PEROUTKA/BALDWIN 10
BADNARIK/CAMPAGNA 2
BUSH/CHENEY 4
KERRY/EDWARDS 6

It’s kind of hard to line the arrow up to the 10 with 2 appearing below it.

(And on another absentee booklet, the order went Kerry, Disqualified, Pertouka, Badnarik, Bush; it’s not random, but it is a cycled, alphabetical list).

Take care! I’ll get you the pictures when I can.