True, there are going to be some "spoiled" ballots, either due to mistakes by voters, or due to problems with collection and counting. Most of the problems I've linked to here aren't about voter error. That is another problem that needs to be addressed, but wasn't the focus here.
One set of questions is: how bad is the miscounting of properly-cast ballots from legitimate voters, what is an acceptable margin of error, and what can we do to improve things so that they're within that acceptable margin? Note that one proposed answer for the acceptable margin of error in counting votes is "zero".
Another set of questions address the issues of legitimate voters being prevented from voting, and fraudulent ballots being cast. We've got problems with those.
And then there's the set of questions concerning how to improve the ballots and the process to reduce voter error and confusion. (Including questioning why some ballots are as confusing as they are.)
Proper ballot/procedure design will minimize, though not eliminate, voter error. The system you've got doesn't sound like the least confusing one we could design, but it does sound refreshingly straightforward. Simplicity is a virtue. I think I could live with such a system. As much as I like high-tech, there's a lot to say in favour of simple paper ballots.
One question about your system: how many questions/races are usually being voted on in an election? Here it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction (it's not a national election; it's several hundred local elections held on the same day, where one of the questions is a vote for national office). In Baltimore, Maryland, we had 26 separate questions on the ballot, and some places had many more.
We had the following "pick one of these candidates" questions: one national race for president; one statewide race for senator; one district-wide race for representative; three city-wide races (mayor, council president, comptroller); one less-than-whole-city race (local member of the city council).
We had one question to choose circuit court judges, where the instruction was "choose no more than five from this list". And we had one question for an apeals court judge which was "continue in office? yes/no".
The rest were yes/no questions on referenda, all of them at the city level (no proposed amendments to the state constitution and such this time): five proposed amendments to the city charter and twelve bond issues (seeking permission for the city to borrow money to fund various projects).
Are your elections a lot simpler than that, or does the colour coding scheme scale up to something like this? If it scales, that's really nifty. If not, well maybe we can borrow part of the idea anyhow...
Of course, one of the subtopics in the ongoing debate about election reform is the question of whether our elections need to be as complicated as they are in the first place. (I suspect we're stuck with that because of the very structure of our governments.)
(no subject)
One set of questions is: how bad is the miscounting of properly-cast ballots from legitimate voters, what is an acceptable margin of error, and what can we do to improve things so that they're within that acceptable margin? Note that one proposed answer for the acceptable margin of error in counting votes is "zero".
Another set of questions address the issues of legitimate voters being prevented from voting, and fraudulent ballots being cast. We've got problems with those.
And then there's the set of questions concerning how to improve the ballots and the process to reduce voter error and confusion. (Including questioning why some ballots are as confusing as they are.)
Proper ballot/procedure design will minimize, though not eliminate, voter error. The system you've got doesn't sound like the least confusing one we could design, but it does sound refreshingly straightforward. Simplicity is a virtue. I think I could live with such a system. As much as I like high-tech, there's a lot to say in favour of simple paper ballots.
One question about your system: how many questions/races are usually being voted on in an election? Here it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction (it's not a national election; it's several hundred local elections held on the same day, where one of the questions is a vote for national office). In Baltimore, Maryland, we had 26 separate questions on the ballot, and some places had many more.
We had the following "pick one of these candidates" questions: one national race for president; one statewide race for senator; one district-wide race for representative; three city-wide races (mayor, council president, comptroller); one less-than-whole-city race (local member of the city council).
We had one question to choose circuit court judges, where the instruction was "choose no more than five from this list". And we had one question for an apeals court judge which was "continue in office? yes/no".
The rest were yes/no questions on referenda, all of them at the city level (no proposed amendments to the state constitution and such this time): five proposed amendments to the city charter and twelve bond issues (seeking permission for the city to borrow money to fund various projects).
Are your elections a lot simpler than that, or does the colour coding scheme scale up to something like this? If it scales, that's really nifty. If not, well maybe we can borrow part of the idea anyhow...
Of course, one of the subtopics in the ongoing debate about election reform is the question of whether our elections need to be as complicated as they are in the first place. (I suspect we're stuck with that because of the very structure of our governments.)