OT: Interesting Reading Part 2
Confusing ballots constituted literacy
test for many in Florida
By Jeff Zeleny
Tribune Staff Writer
January 28, 2001
QUINCY, Fla. -- The people who set the voting rules, who design ballots and
who supervise elections live in a literate world. But that's not the case for all
voters—a lesson that became clear during Florida's presidential election ordeal.
The ability to read has not been a requirement to vote in more than 25 years.
But with 24 million American adults functionally illiterate, the ability to
understand a ballot has become its own literacy test.
"The Supreme Court says there can't be a literacy test to vote," said Timothy
Shanahan, director of the Center for Literacy at the University of
Illinois-Chicago. "But if you put the bar high enough, it's a literacy test in a new
form."
By creating ballots that even educated people found confusing, Florida election
officials jeopardized the ability to vote for thousands of people who lack an
education, who have reading disabilities or who were unfamiliar with
standardized tests, such as the ACT or SAT, that made fill-in-the-circle a
familiar part of growing up.
In its examination of invalid ballots in 15 Florida counties, Tribune Co. found
thousands on which people negated their votes by improperly filling in the
circles, voting for too many candidates and otherwise failing to follow
instructions. Some ballots were left blank.
Pam Karlan, a professor at Stanford University, said that since Congress
banned literacy voting tests in 1975, it has been widely assumed that illiteracy is
no longer a barrier to voting. As Florida's election showed, the problem
remains. But it's not a problem of race, she said, but one of education.
"Voting is one place where it's difficult to get by without reading," said Karlan,
who studies voting-rights issues. "Some of the responsibility is clearly on the
government."
A prime example is Gadsden County, Florida's only predominantly black county,
which recorded the highest percentage—12.4—of discarded presidential ballots
among the state's 67 counties.
This northern rural county is poor, and its schools reflect that. All but one of
Gadsden's 16 public schools received a D on a statewide report card from the
state Department of Education. Its best school earned a C. The county ranked
last in student achievement scores in the state.
According to Florida Kids Count, a survey by the University of South Florida,
more than 70 percent of schoolchildren in Gadsden County are eligible for free
or reduced-price lunches, a common indicator of poverty. Half of Gadsden's
adult black population hasn't graduated from high school.
The U.S. Civil Rights Commission, which is investigating voting irregularities in
Florida, subpoenaed Gadsden County election officials this month for a hearing.
Commissioners questioned why the county with the most election errors was
the one predominantly black one in the state.
"I think illiteracy is the problem," said Denny Hutchinson, the former Gadsden
County supervisor of elections. Voters "weren't informed enough or educated
enough by us."
While more than 1 in 10 votes in the county were disqualified, nearly 1 in every
4 presidential votes were rejected from the St. John Precinct. The precinct is
anchored by the St. John Elementary School, where 89 percent of the students
are black, 10 percent are Hispanic and 1 percent are white.
Vivian Kelly, 81, a retired schoolteacher and longtime Democratic organizer,
said she believes voters couldn't read the directions. And most people, she said,
would be too shy to ask for help. State law allows poll workers to offer
assistance.
"There are a lot of people who go to the polls and just don't understand," Kelly
said.
Voting problems in Florida transcended demographic lines. In Lake County's
Precinct 65, which is 99 percent white, 123 voters filled out their ballots
incorrectly. In Levy County's Precinct 1, which is 89 percent white, 47
presidential ballots were rejected because of voter error.
The problem is that ballots in Gadsden and other counties examined by Tribune
Co. are unnecessarily complex and confusing—even to educated voters.
"Some of the things here are not just problems that would throw someone with
literacy problems," said Shanahan, the Chicago literacy expert. "I could imagine
a good reader would find this confusing."
The stumbling blocks range from poor ballot design to confusing language,
including:
A voter is instructed to ask for a new ballot if "you spoil your ballot." A "spoiled
ballot" is election jargon for a ballot on which a voter has made a mistake.
Literacy experts suggest the wording: "If you make a mistake, ask for another
ballot."
"Vote for ONE Group" could be interpreted as an instruction to vote for a
group of candidates instead of one pair of presidential and vice presidential
candidates. The Florida supervisors of elections in a meeting last week voted to
change the wording to "Vote for One."
State-mandated wording at the top of the presidential ballot that "a vote for the
candidates will actually be a vote for their electors" is an Election Day civics
lesson that likely confuses voters, experts say. Other states have ballots that
simply say: "Vote for President and Vice President."
But the challenge is more than just telling voters how to vote. It's keeping those
with reading problems in mind when designing ballots.
"If, as a society, our goal is to increase the number of people participating in
elections, we can't use literacy as a barrier," said JoAnn Mullen, a professor of
education at the University of Northern Colorado. "Just because someone can't
read the ballot well doesn't mean they are not entitled to express their opinion at
the polls."
Orlando Sentinel reporter Jeff Kunerth contributed to this report.
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