How are you even supposed to vote on this ballot? Do you circle the candidate name, the arrow, or the other little symbol next to the arrow? Or are you supposed to use a hole punch or something?

Looks pretty effed up. However, you would have to be pretty damned out of it not to notice that the arrows are misaligned.

I think it’s some sort of OCR thing where you fill in the arrow. But once you figure out they’re misaligned, what do you do then? I mean, you and I are engineers, so we try to second-guess the scanning hardware, but let’s say it’s a non-technical recount worker trying to figure out who the non-technical voter meant to vote for . . .

Derek - that's similar to the ballot we use in San Mateo County; you fill in the space in the arrow. It's technologically the same as bubbling in a circular region (which is what Santa Cruz uses).

That said ... I have no idea how you vote this actual ballot as it's totally unclear which arrow leads to which candidate.

Not only is it off-center, there's also an extra arrow in there. Seven candidates, eight arrows.

I've seen this thing elsewhere on the web, and on the ballot the only part that isn't out of alignment is the "vote straight party ticket" section at the top.

That's NOT an extra arrow. It's 7 candidates plus an arrow for the write-in box; that's how write-ins are handled on optical scan ballots.

The trick is that someone has to go count the write-in by hand if that arrow is filled in.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the correct, man.

Jon - you're welcome; i'm intimately familiar with this process, and I hate to see misinformation about it. :) For a nightmare version of how this plays out in practice in peculiarly bad circumstances, read this.

So you fill in the arrow with ink?

That in and of itself seems a bit bizarre. It seems like a bad idea to have an irregular shape as a fill-in bubble, doesn't it?

Anyway, it's a pretty bad example of incompetence.

I'm not even sure about the best way to handle the whole absentee ballot process. It seems particularly susceptible to screw-ups and abuse.

You fill in the arrow with *pencil* if it's an absentee or with special pens if you're in the polling place.

Note that this problem could occur in precinct balloting just as easily; some counties actually use this kind of system for precinct voting as well as absentee voting. In practice, it's way more clear than I would have thought; while I prefer the oval bubbles, the arrows work as well, and they (usually) have the benefit of making it extremely clear whom you are voting for.

Out here in Arizoney, we use the connect-the-arrows-with-pen method. I kinda like it because you can really press down hard and vote emphatically. Even though I know I only get one vote, it feels like a more powerful vote when I can press down hard and vote emphatically.

Here in Orygun we vote by mail and you have to be able to find your own push-pin to stab the holes in the card.

I plan to be emphatic, like an Arizonan, however.

Greg - you'd realy like the old-school punch-card devices, then. :)

Down in Jorja we got them new-fangled boxes whut you press with your thumb or elbow to choose your choice. I figure if I press it several times, that'll let that box know I'm pretty serious, like when I press the elevator button over and over to tell it to hurry up.

Jon - I strongly urge you to consider voting absentee. Touch-screen voting systems are not secure and their vote counts are not verifiable.

Also, if you hit the glass hard to vote emphatically on a touch-screen, it might break.

Back to the Michigan ballot: according to a letter from the Michigan Department of State (assuming that page is legitimate), the misprinted ballot went out to a total of 69 voters in one precinct before it was caught. Those ballots were being reprinted as of last weekend and it looks like they were supposed to be reissued this week.

However, the Michigan Department of State web page doesn't appear to have any info about this, and I haven't yet dropped them an email to see whether the posted letter is true.

Aphrael: I'm already aware of all that. It came up when we used these things in the 2002 election.

My decision not to bother voting absentee is slightly fatalistic to begin with. On one hand, I live in a really conservative section of a conservative state. In other words, unless Bush wets himself on camera during one of the debates, the place is pretty much a lock for him.

So why am I bothering voting, when I put it like that? My dad's a poll worker and has been for a number of elections. He's heard (and shared) a number of stories about election fraud in our fine state. Historical, mostly, involving people with shotguns guarding ballot boxes. In many ways, this isn't any different. Fraud is fraud.

Besides, the Secretary of State in charge of these fine voting machines is a Democrat. Which might make the outcome more interesting.