Paul S. Herrnson 

A Study of Voting Technology and Ballot Design 

The events surrounding the 2000 presidential election called attention to a variety of 

seldom-discussed facts: that voting technology and ballot design can influence election 

outcomes; that most polling places in the United States employ outdated technology; that 

training in election administration is inadequate; that minorities and the poor are more 

likely to cast their ballots on outdated systems; and that voting procedures affect how 

voters feel about their ability to exercise their right to vote and their willingness to accept 

the results of an election as legitimate. 

Since 2000, states have commissioned studies, revamped election administration, 

redesigned ballots, and begun to invest in new voting equipment. More research, 

particularly on the interface between voters and various voting machines and ballots, is 

needed to provide a basis for the massive voting reform that is being undertaken. 

This project brings together social and computer scientists from a number of disciplines 

to study voting technology and ballot design. The project will use a variety of research 

designs, data collection methodologies, and analysis techniques, including expert review, 

laboratory experiments, close-up observation, field tests, and “natural experiments” that 

occur as local jurisdictions change their voting technology and procedures. The project 

also will subject the team’s “zoomable” voting interface design to the same rigorous 

evaluation applied to existing systems. Finally, we will create a generalized protocol for 

testing voting technology and ballot formats that will be disseminated for nationwide use. 

One part of the study investigates the ability of voters to cast their ballots accurately and 

efficiently, voter ease in casting complete ballots (if so desired), voter comfort using 

different voting interfaces, voter confidence that their ballots will be accurately recorded, 

and the frequency of incomplete ballots and split-ticket voting. 

A second part of the study will assess voters’ responses to different combinations of 

voting machines and ballots. Here we will address questions, such as: Do “office bloc” 

ballots (where all of the candidates for one office are listed in one area) work better with 

certain DRE or specific optical scan machines? What about “party row” or “party 

column” ballots (where each parties’ candidates are listed across a row or down a 

column)? 

A third part of the study, examines the transition from one type of voting interface to 

another. The questions asked in this part include: How well do voters who have cast votes 

on mechanical lever machines using party row ballots adapt to a DRE machine with an 

office block ballot? Are they more prone to make mistakes or feel uncomfortable than 

voters who have previously cast ballots on voting machines that also used office block 

ballots? Is their voting experience as positive as that of voters who cast ballots on DRE 

machines programmed to use a party row ballot. 
In addition to scholarly writings, this project will develop protocols based on how 

different ballot designs perform on various DRE and optical scan machines. These 

protocols should prove useful to voting machine manufacturers, software and printing 

companies that design ballots, and election officials. 

This research is funded by the National Science Foundation, grant number 0306698. For 

more information about the study click on: 

http://www.capc.umd.edu/rpts/VotingTech_par.html. 

Principal Investigators: Paul Herrnson, Ben Bederson, Fred Conrad, Richard Niemi, 

Michael Traugott 

Project Coordinator: Peter Francia