response 156 of 409:

Nov 16 03:25 UTC 2000

A manual recount of the entire state can be expected to add thousands
of votes to both candidates' totals.

response 158 of 409:

Nov 16 03:59 UTC 2000

A manula recount in PBC will obliterate Bush's lead.
A manual recount in all of Florida will produce roughly the same results as
we have now.

response 160 of 409:

Nov 16 05:24 UTC 2000

George Will, in his most recent column, claimed that even in areas of Florida
which went heavily for Bush, manual examination of the ballots led to 
more votes for Gore, and that this is why Bush can't agree to a 
statewide manual recount.

response 162 of 409:

Nov 16 06:21 UTC 2000

Actually, it should be up to *either* side to ask for a recount.  It
should be up to a court to decide if that count should be *required*.
Even in the ideal case, the state election official, having just been
responsible for implementing the election process, is not in a position
to objectively judge any flaws in the process.  In this case, the state
election official is clearly a creature of Jeb Bushs's, meaning both
party and family links are clearly obliterating any trace of objectivity
or fairness that a politician might ordinarily be expected to show.

My belief is that in most areas, the machines *were* fairly accurate,
and it's only in a few areas where, through stupidity and sloppiness,
the ballots were badly designed, and interacted in a particularly bad
way with the quirks of the machines and errors in the process to result
in an obviously unfair and flawed result.  From the sounds of it all,
this kind of error is not that uncommon and could even have been avoided
in this case, if only people had gotten excited enough by past problems
to fix this one.  But that's nearly always true in disasters; there's a
chain of unfortunate decisions, each justifiable on its own, that leads
to an inescapable conclusion.  In that respect, it's just like
sloppiness in airplanes or nuclear engineering, except in this case no
planes got dumped into the atlantic ocean, and Detroit didn't get
irridiated.

response 164 of 409:

Nov 16 19:04 UTC 2000

Grex's vote program randomizes the order in which candidates are listed.
You can't do this easily with punched card or optically scanned ballots.
I notice both of the Florida ballots shown at
http://www.npr.org/news/national/election2000/archives/001109.ballot.html
list the candidates in the same order (Bush, Gore, Browne, Nader, Harris,
Hagelin, Buchanan, McReynolds, Phillips).  Where do they get that order?

I suspect that people attempting to vote for Bush are going to have a
higher success rate than people voting for Gore.  Bush is the first name,
so you punch the first hole.  Punching one of the middle holes is going
to be marginally more error prone no matter how well designed the ballot
is (you can err both by punching too high or punching too low).  I doubt
if it ordinarily makes much difference, but it might be enough to explain
why most recounts seem to find a few more Gore votes than they find Bush
votes.

Of course, recounting won't fix most of the "voted for the wrong candidate"
errors.  Only some of the "wait, whoops, that's the wrong hole, I meant this
hole" and "voted for the right guy but didn't push hard enough" errors.  Maybe
Bush voters just tend to jab the punch more forcefully than those wussy
liberals.

Anyway, no matter how much they recount the Palm Beach ballots, they won't
fix the vast majority of the "wanted Gore but punched Buchanan" errors.
Buchanan got 3,407 votes in Palm Beach County.   If Palm Beachers had voted
for Buchanan at the same rate as people in the rest of Florida, there would
have been about 1100 votes for him.  If they had voted at the same rate as
the county to the south (Broward, a bit more liberal going 68% for Gore
compared to 62% for Gore in Palm Beach) there would have been about 600 votes
for Buchanan.  If they had vote for Buchanan at the same rate as people in
the county to the north (Martin, much more conservative, going 55% for Bush)
there would have been about 750 Buchanan votes.  Now Buchanan does have a
condo in Palm Beach, and probaly has some buddies there, but it still looks
like there are a least 2000 too many Buchanan votes.  This really sticks out
in the statistics - it's two or three times more Buchanan votes than even the
most conservative parts of Florida.  And the Palm Beach ballot really is
confusing.  With the Florida race being decided by a mere 300 votes, and no
comparable irregularities on the Bush side, I think it is a near certainty
that a majority of Flordia voters really meant to vote for Gore, and that
if the Palm Beach ballot had been laid out like all the other Florida Ballots,
Gore would be the unquestioned president-elect today.

This particular injustice is probably not going to be fixed.  It would take
a revote to do that and it doesn't look likely.  If Gore wins Florida, it
will have to be by finding 300 more votes among the absentees and muffed
ballots.  But if Gore doesn't win Florida, his supports will forever have
good cause to say "he should have".

Of course, the election is basically a tie.  You could reasonably decide who
takes office by a coin flip.  So maybe it will be decided instead by a bad
idea in the mind of a ballot designer in Palm Beach.  Not much to get worked
up about unless you think it makes a difference which president we get.

response 166 of 409:

Nov 17 00:03 UTC 2000

>#164> The order of candidates on the ballot is set by Florida law. It is:
>Candidates for each party represented in the most recent race for governor,
>in order of votes received for governor.
>All other certified candidates, in the order that they were certified.
>
>Since Jeb is Governor, the first two candidates on every slate MUST be a
>Republican and a Democrat, in that order (unless, of course, there's no
>candidate for that party in that race).

response 168 of 409:

Nov 17 02:13 UTC 2000

On butterfly ballots and error rates:

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

response 170 of 409:

Nov 17 02:45 UTC 2000

Interesting stuff, though the sample size was a bit small.  Duceppe should
have been put in the Buchanan slot, since *any* votes for him would be in
error.

response 172 of 409:

Nov 17 04:09 UTC 2000

As you say, concession is a matter of politeness.
Then again, when your opponent offers to sit down with you and hash things
out, it's also a matter of politeness to say yes. GWB expects politeness, and
yet when he's offered the opportunity to do the same, he declines.

response 174 of 409:

Nov 17 04:28 UTC 2000

The election was played according to the rules. Even though I personally agree
that the butterfly ballot was in violation of Florida statutes, it is true
that the time to complain was before, not after, Election Day. According to
the rules, Bush won. A noble man would have seen the error in Palm Beach and
agreed to work to fix it, and so Bush is not a fair sportsman; he would rather
hide behind "the rules" then try to have a serious dialog about what's fair.
After the dialog, it may even be concluded that it's not fair to revote, for
the sake of the rest of the country, but we won't have that conversation
because Bush chooses not to.

Gore, realizing that he wasn't going to win on a fair dispute about the
ballots, chose to manipulate the rules in his own direction, with these
blessed manual recounts. Personally, I have lost respect for him for having
done that. He lost (barring an unusual absentee ballot return). He shouldn't
have to be the one who's the "big man" who shows his leadership by stepping
forward and offering a peace -- that SHOULD be Bush, who instead opted to show
his Compassion and Empathy that he boasts so much about by saying that it made
sense that a heavily Jewish precinct would vote for an open anti-Semite.

There. My moment of sanctimony. =}

response 176 of 409:

Nov 17 15:19 UTC 2000

The judge has ruled that the Secy, of State was correct in her ruling.  She
does not have to accept the handcounts.  Gore is appealing.

response 178 of 409:

Nov 17 23:10 UTC 2000

"Manipulating rules" is not "breaking rules." Gore didn't suggest a statewide
manual recount until after Bush had already filed suit to block any hand
counts; until then, Gore had only requested hand counts in heavily Democratic
counties. that's manipulating rules in one's own direction.

response 180 of 409:

Nov 17 23:38 UTC 2000

re #178: That's absolute nonsense. Nothing in the statute says you have to
         request a state-wide recount. You may request a recount only in
         those counties where you believe there is a problem. That's not
         only 100% consistent with the statute, it is precisely what the
         statute *intends* for candidates to do.