Study: Poor ballot designs still affect U.S. elections

A Palm Beach County ballot led to confusion at the polls in 2000. Counties where ballot design caused confusion and influenced election results: November 2000 Palm Beach, Fla. November 2006 Sarasota, Fla. February 2008 Los Angeles, Calif. Source: Brennan Center for Justice, New York University School of Law WASHINGTON — Poorly designed ballots continue to plague U.S. elections, even after Congress set aside $3 billion to overhaul voting systems to prevent a recurrence of the flawed Florida ballots that deadlocked the 2000 presidential race, a study out today concludes. Problems with confusing paper ballots in 2002, absentee ballots in 2004 and touch-screen ballots in 2006 led thousands of voters to skip over key races or make mistakes that invalidated their votes, according to the study by the Brennan Center for Justice at... [read full story]