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Social Science Tackles the Palm Beach Ballot

Timothy Noah
Posted Friday, Nov. 10, 2000, at 12:38 PM ET

Many readers have urged Chatterbox to weigh in on the dispute over the Palm Beach "butterfly" ballot. Chatterbox has two conflicting opinions: 1) When you really look at it, the ballot isn't terribly confusing; and 2) nevertheless, it seems to have confused many voters in Palm Beach County. For persuasive evidence on this last point, with more charts and spreadsheets and links to research notes than any sensible person could want, check out this Web page by Greg D. Adams, assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon.

Interestingly, Don Walker of the Shreveport Times reports that the Palm Beach butterfly ballot failed to stump a single member of fourth-grade teacher Lisa Burns' class at Stockwell Elementary School in Bossier City, La., yesterday when she tested it on them. When Stacey Robinson's first-grade class just down the hall tried it, all but five of the 24 students got it right (and one of these five appears to have been a stubborn Bush supporter). "If a first-grader can choose the correct bubble, there's no legitimate claim," Robinson concluded. "Anyone could have done it." But this doesn't necessarily follow. It's possible--even probable--that children are much more adept at eye-hand coordination than the typical voter in Palm Beach County. Perhaps Chatterbox should reconsider his opposition to lowering the voting age. A crueler alternative, which follows logically but which Chatterbox can't condone, is to disenfranchise the elderly.

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Reader Comments from The Fray:


[Notes from the Fray Editor: John-Paul Spiro in an excellent post said "Many fourth graders could construct an English sentence better than George W. Bush, but that doesn't prove anything." BJ tried what another poster called "Madamn Butterfly" on his 4-year old, but as he changed the method (blue crayon lines?) we're not sure his results help. Most people seemed unimpressed by testing on children (presumably on the analogy that the children know how to set the video too.)]


First, did the kids just look at the picture and point at the right bubble or did they have to use the unwieldy apparatus that real voters did?

Second, regardless of however many people can get it right, in a democracy everyone has a right to vote and have their vote count--even people who can't read very well and elderly people.

For godsakes, the winner should be the one that more people wanted to win, not decided by a mistakes and illegal ballots. Bush has lost any claim to character by trying to accede to the presidency on multiple technicalities.

--Chris Marshall

(To reply, click here.)


There's a possible good reason why the 4th grader's had no problem with the ballot, when apparently intelligent adults did--they probably knew it was tricky and had misled some adults. One looks at a document differently when one knows there's potentially something tricky or "off" about it. The assumption of the people going to the polls on Tuesday was that the balloting process was transparent, and that there was no reason to check their assumptions about how the ballots worked or what they meant. Anyone looking at the ballot now has very different assumptions. Probably even 4th graders, and maybe even first graders.

--Eric Akawie

(To reply, click here.)


When, in the anonymous confines of political chat, I expressed surprise at the premature rumors of Bush's win, I added a "Thank God! I was sure he would lose." Someone said snidely, "You must be rich or old!" Had to laugh. I replied, "Neither. But I'm smart."

--ktidid

(To reply, click here.)


Fourth graders have grown up in a time where standardized tests and bubble marking are ubiquitous and old hat. They're used to it, and so they're better at it and more accurate. We live in a time where misplaced bubbles, for fourth graders, can mean being held back. Not so for the elderly, and for their school years

--Adam R

(To reply, click here.)

(11/10)

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