An electoral butterfly effect -- very interesting
Saw this on the way out:
Nature has decided to publish this Brief Communication online in advance of print publication because of its immediate topicality. The print version will be published on 7 December 2000 (citation reference Nature 408, 665-666; 2000).
The infamous 'butterfly'-style ballot card used by Palm Beach County, Florida, in the recent US presidential election causes voting errors to be made and raises doubt over the final result. That's not the conclusion of a Democrat-led inquiry, but the finding of psychologists who have examined the controversial ballot paper in new experimental trials.
Robert Sinclair of the University of Alberta and colleagues report in a Brief Communication this week that some Canadian shoppers made a crucial mistake in simulated voting, for a Canadian prime minister, of exactly the type that may have given Pat Buchanan votes intended for Al Gore. Of 53 people using the double-column butterfly ballot, four made mistakes; three of these involved voting for the candidate in the wrong column. By contrast, a similarly sized group of shoppers given a simpler, single-column ballot made no mistakes.
In a separate trial, college students made no mistakes using either type of ballot, but did report that they found the butterfly ballot more confusing. The authors argue that the shoppers are more representative of the general population than students, who are used to taking multiple-choice exams.
nature.com
HAGO |
