tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/ballot-paper-8379/articlesBallot paper – The Conversation2017-06-07T09:09:27Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/788222017-06-07T09:09:27Z2017-06-07T09:09:27ZTo sleep or not to sleep? Everything you need to know about #GE2017 election night<p>It’s going to be a long night as the UK goes to the polls for its snap 2017 general election. So should you stay up all night or take a democracy nap? Here are the key moments to look out for and the seats which might indicate early on whether Theresa May has secured the thumping majority she originally envisaged. </p>
<h2>The polls close at 10pm</h2>
<p>The doors will shut and ballot boxes will be sealed up and transported to one of the counting centres across the UK. In some places, this involves travelling a significant distance, so delays can occur. In Scotland, helicopters have been used to transfer boxes from remote islands to the mainland.</p>
<p>Counting clerks will then work through the night to count the votes in most cases. If you’re feeling tired by this point, remember that many of these officials will have begun work at 6.30am (or earlier) setting up the poll. </p>
<h2>Will there be an exit poll and will it be reliable?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/general-election-2017">IPSOS-Mori’s exit poll</a> will be reported on the BBC and Sky News at 10pm as soon as polls close.</p>
<p>At the last election, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32428768">exit poll</a> caused quite a stir. Announced on the BBC at 10pm, it forecast that the Conservatives would be the largest party. It took an immediate bashing with Paddy Ashdown infamously stating that he would “eat his hat” if it was correct. He had to eat his hat.</p>
<p>As it turned out, that poll was much closer to the eventual reality than polls that took place before the election. The exit poll is therefore a crucial clue as to how things will unfold.</p>
<p>We should nevertheless take exit polls with a pinch of salt. They’ve been wrong before, as they were in <a href="http://www.conservativehome.com/video/2012/04/the-1992-election-bbc-exit-poll-predicts-a-hung-parliament.html">1992</a>. They are based on samples which may not be representative of the whole population, but exit polls do have the advantage of asking people what they really did, rather than what they intend to do at some point in the future. </p>
<h2>When might we expect local results?</h2>
<p>A local returning officer is responsible for the counts in their area and declarations will drip through during the early hours of the morning. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/does-sunderland-always-declare-election-results-first/">Sunderland</a> traditionally works hard to make its announcement first. Constituents in Houghton & Sunderland South might hear their result as early as 11pm. The result in Sunderland Central generally comes an hour later. After that, things will go quiet. Then there will be a rush of results between 3am and 5am. A handful of constituencies will be as late as noon on Friday. </p>
<p><strong>The distribution of estimated declaration times</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172325/original/file-20170605-16877-1nfxak5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172325/original/file-20170605-16877-1nfxak5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172325/original/file-20170605-16877-1nfxak5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172325/original/file-20170605-16877-1nfxak5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172325/original/file-20170605-16877-1nfxak5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172325/original/file-20170605-16877-1nfxak5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172325/original/file-20170605-16877-1nfxak5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172325/original/file-20170605-16877-1nfxak5.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When to expect results, based on information from the Press Association.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>When will we know who has won?</h2>
<p>Ah, that’s the million dollar question. “Winning” usually means getting 326 seats. This would allow the party leader to have a majority of the seats in parliament. They would then be able to form a government and pass policies without needing the support of another party.</p>
<p>There won’t be enough declarations for a party to have won 326 seats until 4am. And as many seats will go in different directions, it will be much later before a party has won enough constituencies to form a government.</p>
<p>But political scientists and the media will be identifying underlying trends from the early results to get a sense of the overall outcome. Armed with information about the underlying demographic and political makeup of constituencies, we can expect changes in voting patterns to be similar in similar constituencies (on average).</p>
<p>My University of East Anglia colleague Chris Hanretty estimated that Remain had only a 0.03 probability of winning the Brexit referendum by 2:03am. It was zero by 3am. That was long before the politicians (and media channels) cottoned on to what was unfolding. Watch for such forecasts again. </p>
<h2>When will we know who the next PM is?</h2>
<p>If there is decisive victory with one party winning an overall majority, then that party leader will be quickly confirmed as prime minister on Friday morning.<br>
But if no party reaches the magic 326 seats, then there might be some wait. Negotiations will begin between parties about whether they could form a coalition to take them over that threshold. In 2010, it took five days for the Cameron-Clegg coalition to form. There was some surprise in Britain that this process took so long. But in some countries it takes much longer – 541 days after the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379411001430">Belgian elections</a> which took place at around the same time.</p>
<p>And what if Theresa May wins a majority – but a much less handsome one than David Cameron in 2015? Given that a landslide was originally predicted for this election, she might even face an internal coup.</p>
<h2>Could any seats give an early indication?</h2>
<p>If the Conservative party shows signs of winning seats off other parties then they are on track to stay in government. Chris Hanretty has helpfully identified a list of those predicted gains for the Conservatives.</p>
<p>The table below lists the first 25 of these to be called. If they turn blue as expected, Theresa May will be on course to stay in power with an enhanced majority (and 365 seats, according the <a href="http://www.electionforecast.co.uk">electionforecast.co.uk</a> predictions).</p>
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<h2>So should I stay up … or go to bed?</h2>
<p>The hard-core psephologist stays up, and stays the course. The more sensible, normal person stays up for the 10pm exit poll, necks a hot chocolate and gets some kip. Be up early for 4am and you should still have plenty to see. But then again, British politics has been rather unpredictable lately.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78822/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toby S. James has previously received funding from the ESRC, AHRC, British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, Electoral Commission, International IDEA and the Nuffield Foundation for his work on electoral administration. This article does not reflect the views of the research councils. </span></em></p>When can we expect the first results and which are the seats to watch? Plan your night with our guide.Toby James, Senior Lecturer in British & Comparative Politics, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/676792016-11-05T08:51:32Z2016-11-05T08:51:32ZThe US election won’t be rigged – but the system has to be fixed<p>Donald Trump’s claims that the US presidential election will be rigged have rightly been met with outrage and derision. Hillary Clinton called his remarks “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WkUw1JKYBo">horrifying</a>”; incumbent president, Barack Obama, <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/18/politics/obama-trumps-rigged-election-claim-whining-before-the-games-even-over/">responded</a> that: “there is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could even rig the election.” </p>
<p>He’s not far wrong. Expert assessments have repeatedly demonstrated that <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100774960">voter fraud is exceptionally rare</a> (as is <a href="https://www.psa.ac.uk/insight-plus/blog/electoral-fraud-isnt-biggest-problem-british-polling-stations-it%25E2%2580%2599s-electoral">also the case in the UK</a>, by the way). Instead, claims of voter fraud are often made for more disingenuous reasons. </p>
<p>In the US in particular, this sort of rhetoric has <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=i9jY1siVc0IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=elite+statecraft+and+election+administration&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjEk7LSnPTPAhVHBcAKHbxTBHAQ6AEIHjAA">historically been used</a> as a pretext for introducing polling station “monitoring” systems, which function to intimidate and deter opposition supporters from voting. <a href="https://theconversation.com/voting-rights-become-a-proxy-war-in-the-2016-presidential-election-43431">Another tactic</a>, is to stir up panic over supposedly widespread voter fraud push the case for stringent voter ID requirements, which can greatly restrict turnout among likely opposition voters.</p>
<p>The grounds on which these tactics are deployed are generally spurious and disingenous. But just because these claims of voter fraud and election-rigging aren’t well founded or honest doesn’t mean all is well with the American system.</p>
<p>Trump’s threat of legal action immediately brings back memories of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/bryan-cranston-148484">Bush-v-Gore debacle</a> of 2000, where a knife-edge election was dependent on the result in Florida. That state’s poorly designed ballot paper led to voters being confused and voting for the wrong person – and it has since been <a href="http://rangevoting.org/butterfly.pdf">proven</a> that the number of citizens who voted for the wrong candidate by mistake was larger than margin of George W. Bush’s victory.</p>
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<p>This experience triggered a major investment in American’s electoral machinery with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) distributing omore than <a href="http://www.nass.org/component/docman/?task=doc_download&gid=1023&Itemid=">$3 billion</a> to state officials – but there are still serious problems. </p>
<p>The Pew Research Center has created a Performance Index to demonstrated the state-by-state variation in the quality of America’s electoral machinery. The <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/multimedia/data-visualizations/2014/elections-performance-index">most recent data from 2014</a> suggests that North Dakota runs the best elections overall – while Alabama runs the worst ones. If you were a voter in Washington state in 2014, you could expect to <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/multimedia/data-visualizations/2014/elections-performance-index#indicatorProfile-WTV">wait only around 40 seconds to vote</a> while the average wait time in North Carolina was nearly nine minutes. Virtually no postal ballots were <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/multimedia/data-visualizations/2014/elections-performance-index#indicatorProfile-ABR">rejected</a> in Washington DC, but Washington state, which conducts its elections entirely by post, rejected 1.3% of all its mail ballots.</p>
<p>As election day approaches, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/nyc-election-readiness-questioned-1478218950">officials in New York City have warned</a> that their infrastructure may not be able to deal with a high turnout.</p>
<p>Not an altogether reassuring picture, then. So how can America’s elections be improved? </p>
<h2>Doing better</h2>
<p>The logic with which Obama <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/18/politics/obama-trumps-rigged-election-claim-whining-before-the-games-even-over/">dismissed</a> Trump’s electoral fraud claim was striking. For him, election rigging was not possible because US elections are</p>
<blockquote>
<p>so decentralised … Elections are run by state and local officials which means that there are places like Florida, where you have got a Republican governor, whose Republican appointees are going to be running and monitoring these election sites … The notion that Trump loses Florida because of “those people” … is irresponsible.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Put simply, the argument is that localised administrative systems prevent electoral fraud. In the US, each state has considerable discretion over the procedures it uses. There will be also be thousands of counts across the country on the night, each reporting their own result. They will be organisationally and technologically independent from each other, meaning that to orchestrate a fixed result even at the state level would be <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-hard-is-it-to-rig-an-election-67374">nigh on impossible</a>.</p>
<p>Any <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-government-officially-accuses-russia-of-hacking-campaign-to-influence-elections/2016/10/07/4e0b9654-8cbf-11e6-875e-2c1bfe943b66_story.html">Russian attempt to fix the result</a> would therefore face the longest of odds.</p>
<p>But it is unusual for anyone, and especially the Democrats, to laud the US system for its decentralisation. This same structure has long been blamed for many of the problems with the system, and for many of the inequalities in the services provided to voters. Yale academic <a href="https://www.law.yale.edu/heather-gerken">Heather Gerken</a> has argued that “localism” has been the cause of a great many problems in American elections. Renowned elections expert Robert Pastor <a href="http://www.idea.int/publications/emd/upload/EMD_inlay_final.pdf">claimed</a> that the US system has been “decentralised to the point of being dysfunctional”.</p>
<p>The experience of 2000 begat a new worldwide field of academic study striving to identify the best ways of running elections. My own recently published <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01442872.2016.1213802">research</a> shows that introducing some degree of centralisation in an already decentralised system can have both positive and negative effects. </p>
<p>It can provide a more consistent experience for the voter, ensure some minimal standards and reduce local managerial errors. But there is a cost: sensitivity to the needs of each locality can be reduced – and it can be expensive to issue blanket instructions and uniformity where it is not necessarily needed.</p>
<p>There are other known fixes from academic research: recruiting and training <a href="https://tobysjamesdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/clark-james-poll-workers-why-participate-psa-conf-final-2016.pdf">high-quality poll workers</a>, using <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379413001133">performance management schemes</a> and simply <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/advancing-electoral-integrity-9780199368716?cc=gb&lang=en&">investing more in electoral services</a> are high up on the list. On all these measures, the US could do much better.</p>
<p>Trump may be wide of the mark with his claims of election “rigging”, but if these claims sound plausible to much of the American public, it’s partly because the country has failed to adequately tighten the nuts and bolts of elections even after seeing the machine fail spectacularly. If voters don’t trust the process, that’s a serious problem for democracy; once this election is done, the problem needs to be tackled head-on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67679/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toby S. James's research has been externally funded by the British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, AHRC, ESRC, Nuffield Foundation, UK Electoral Commission and the McDougall Trust. He runs the academic research website <a href="http://www.electoralmanagement.com">www.electoralmanagement.com</a>.</span></em></p>President Obama is right to say it’s very, very hard to rig an American election. That doesn’t mean things always go to plan.Toby James, Senior Lecturer in British & Comparative Politics, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/548682016-02-25T11:06:22Z2016-02-25T11:06:22ZWhy it’s time to end in-person voting for good<p>During President Obama’s final State of the Union address, he called for reforms to the voting process, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/13/us/politics/obama-2016-sotu-transcript.html?_r=0">saying</a>, “We’ve got to make it easier to vote, not harder. We need to modernize it for the way we live now.” </p>
<p>Just ahead of Super Tuesday and in the midst of the presidential primaries – where we’ve already witnessed record turnout and long lines in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada – it’s a good time to reconsider the president’s appeal to modernize the voting process, and review an encouraging effort to do just this. </p>
<p>Many <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/17/politics/hillary-clinton-alabama-voter-id-laws/">have questioned</a> the burden and fairness of voter ID laws, particularly for minority voters. But even easing voter ID laws doesn’t eliminate the bias of the polling locations themselves. In fact, a score of recent studies highlight how the building where you vote – whether it’s a church or a school – can subconsciously influence which boxes you check on the ballot. </p>
<h2>Primed for votes</h2>
<p>The method by which a polling location can influence someone’s decision is known as priming. <a href="http://alicekim.ca/Sci90noBeg.pdf">Priming</a> is a subconscious form of memory, based on identification of ideas and objects. This effect happens when external stimuli “manipulate” internal thoughts, feelings or behaviors. After becoming activated by stimuli, priming triggers these associations in our memory. For example, one study <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v390/n6656/pdf/390132a0.pdf">showed</a> that a store playing traditional French or German music can prime shoppers to buy French or German products.</p>
<p>Most states prohibit campaigning <a href="http://www.nass.org/component/docman/?task=doc_download&gid=1347">within 100 feet</a> of a polling place, and others ban wearing campaign buttons or t-shirts while voting. While these laws were passed to prevent voter intimidation, subtle exposure to campaign paraphernalia could result in priming. During the Nevada caucuses, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/23/donald-trump-wins-nevada-caucuses-results">some voters complained</a> that caucus volunteers – not so subtly – were wearing Donald Trump paraphernalia.</p>
<p>But even if banning campaigning near polling sites were strictly enforced, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12518968">research confirms</a> that locations themselves can serve as contextual primes that influence specific attitudes and behaviors. </p>
<p>For example, simply being in a church can change our attitudes. A 2012 <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10508619.2012.634778">study</a> found that religious locations prime significantly higher conservative attitudes – and negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbians – than nonreligious locations. </p>
<p>Other <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2009.00749.x/epdf">studies</a> also observed that being exposed to churches and clerical images can promote someone’s Christian identity, making them more likely to back political initiatives aligned with Christian values and philosophies. </p>
<p>For these reasons, it’s plausible to suspect that churches could cause religious priming in voters, unfairly biasing voters to vote for more conservative candidates and take more conservative stances on ballot issues such as same-sex marriage.</p>
<p>The use of schools as polling places has also been called into question, and social scientists have examined whether schools can unfairly bias vote choice on education-related ballot measures. </p>
<p>Since 2000, education measures have made it to general election ballots <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/ballot-measures-database.aspx">208 times</a>. The thinking goes that voters in schools are likely to be primed to think about their own schooling – or their own care for children – and, in turn, support pro-education measures.</p>
<h2>And the studies say…</h2>
<p>At this time, there are six published studies on the issue of whether or not polling location can subtly influence our vote. And all of them, to a varying degree, conclude that the priming of polling places is a real phenomenon. </p>
<p>In 2008, professors Jonah Berger, Marc Meredith and S. Christian Wheeler were the first to investigate this matter, <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/105/26/8846.long">finding</a> that individuals voting in Arizona schools were more likely to support a ballot measure that increased the state’s sale tax to finance education.</p>
<p>Two years later, psychologist Abraham Rutchick <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2009.00749.x/abstract">discovered</a> that voters in South Carolina churches were more likely to support a conservative Republican challenger, and more likely to oppose a same-sex marriage ballot measure. </p>
<p>After controlling for voters’ party identification, Rutchick found the conservative Republican challenger received 41 percent of the vote in churches and just 32 percent in secular locations. Then, after controlling for the age, race, sex and party identification of each voter in 1,468 polling places in the 2006 general election, he found that 83 percent of people voting in churches supported establishing a definition of marriage as between one man and one woman, while 81.5 percent did so in secular locations – a significant difference.</p>
<p>In late 2011, I conducted a study with political scientists Jeanette Morehouse Mendez and Rebekah Herrick, analyzing three measures voted on in Oklahoma’s 2008 general election. One measure sought to ban same-sex marriage in the state, while the other two sought to create a lottery system to fund education. </p>
<p>While our <a href="http://ojs.library.okstate.edu/osu/index.php/OKPolitics/article/viewFile/1020/920">findings</a> were not as distinct as the previous studies, we did discover that Oklahomans voting in churches were less supportive of the ban.</p>
<p>In any case, our education findings were consistent with Berger, Meredith and Wheeler’s. After controlling for political ideology, we found that voters in school buildings were more supportive of the education referendums than those casting votes in community buildings.</p>
<p>In 2014, we published a follow-up <a href="http://www.esciencecentral.org/journals/lets-be-fair-do-polling-locations-prime-votes-2332-0761.1000126.pdf">study</a> that expanded the research to multiple states. We tested election data from Maine, Maryland and Minnesota’s 2012 general election. Like the previous studies, we theorized that churches and schools could unfairly prime vote choice. While we found that churches actually primed <em>more</em> support for same-sex initiatives, there’s ample evidence to support the confounding results in <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/maryland-marriage-equality-law-civil-marriage-protection-act_n_1901634.html">Maryland</a> and <a href="http://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-area-lutherans-oppose-marriage-amendment/139536313/">Minnesota</a>. </p>
<p>Also, like previous studies on the priming ability of schools, we found that voters in schools were more supportive of education. For example, in Maine’s 2012 general election, 47 percent of votes cast in schools were in favor of the education bond issue, while only 42 percent did so in community buildings and miscellaneous locations. We ran additional tests on the data to control for political ideology, and the results reinforced our findings. </p>
<p>Most recently, a <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379415001821">study</a> on polling sites was replicated for the first time outside the U.S. In October 2015, political scientist Matthias Fatke published his work concluding that polling places in Germany could influence vote choice. </p>
<p>Taken as a whole, the empirical evidence has found that a seemingly irrelevant thing – a polling location – can influence a voter’s decision on a political candidate, political party and ballot issues. </p>
<h2>An alternative approach</h2>
<p>In 2011, the <em>Boston University Law Review</em> published an <a href="http://www.bu.edu/law/journals-archive/bulr/documents/blumenthalandturnipseed.pdf">article</a> arguing that the courts were wrong to allow the use of churches as polling places. The article’s authors, Syracuse law professors Jeremy Blumenthal and Terry Turnipseed, supported the elimination of polling locations and called for the adoption of a ballot-by-mail system. </p>
<p>Colorado, Oregon and Washington have taken legislative action to remodel their voting process, making it easier (and fairer) to vote. They’ve done this by eliminating the traditional polling location, and going to an all-mail voting system. </p>
<p>In these states, ballots are mailed to registered voters at least two weeks prior to Election Day. Voters then decide, at their convenience, to either mail their ballot back or drop it off at a designated location. </p>
<p>Some proponents argue against all-mail voting, citing <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/all-mail-elections.aspx">tradition</a>, as many are accustomed to voting at their polling location. Others contend it will lead to higher rates of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/12/16/the-pros-and-cons-of-all-mail-elections-as-told-by-two-republican-secretaries-of-state/">voter fraud</a> or coercion. </p>
<p>But advocates of this new method praise the emergent improvements in voter turnout and safeguards, and the decreased costs from eliminating poll workers. Since <a href="http://sos.oregon.gov/voting/Pages/voteinor.aspx">Oregon</a> first implemented all-mail voting, they’ve ranked as a national leader in voter turnout. After <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/03/12/the-states-with-the-highest-and-lowest-turnout-in-2012-in-2-charts/">Washington</a> made the change, their turnout improved to 13th best in 2012, up from 15th in 2008. Similarly, Colorado (the most recent state to enact all-mail voting) saw their <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/editorials/ci_26909639/vote-confidence-mail-elections-colorado">turnout increase</a> to roughly 2 million people in 2014 – up from 1.8 million in 2010.</p>
<p>A total of 13,397 polling places were examined in the range of studies cited above. Nearly all the findings suggest that priming concerns should join <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/all-mail-elections.aspx#Adv">convenience</a> and <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article4304076.html">lower costs</a> as reasons for adopting all-mail voting. </p>
<p>It would answer President Obama’s call to modernize the voting process, providing voters with the time to develop informed decisions about candidates and issues.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54868/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Pryor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Simply by voting in a church, you’re more likely to support a conservative cause or candidate.Ben Pryor, Researcher, Oklahoma State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207762013-12-17T18:49:34Z2013-12-17T18:49:34ZHumans struggle with decisions – why make elections so difficult?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37923/original/qmjpzhv9-1387240124.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">With so many choices 'below the line' how are voters confident they've ranked candidates correctly?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dean Lewins</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s been a crazy year for decision making. Not only did we have an election, we now have the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-double-dissolutions-and-how-do-they-work-19236">threat of a double dissolution</a> if the Federal Senate keeps knocking back bills from the House of Representatives. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Western Australians are likely to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-new-senate-election-looms-large-for-wa-voters-19757">headed for fresh Senate by-elections</a> next year after the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) <a href="http://www.aec.gov.au/media/media-releases/2013/e10-31.htm">misplaced 1,375 votes</a> in the last election. </p>
<p>Problems with voting for the Senate are ingrained in the system itself. The electoral system of the Australian Senate has a number of unique and progressive features: preferential voting, proportional representation and choice at the candidate level. </p>
<p>Because of this complexity, flaws in the system have emerged. Here, briefly, is an explanation of the system’s problems and a number of easy-to-implement solutions.</p>
<h2>The Senate model</h2>
<p>Currently, the Senate ballot paper has two parts:</p>
<ol>
<li>“above the line” with the name of the parties</li>
<li>“below the line” with the names of the candidates of each party. </li>
</ol>
<p>Voting “below the line” requires determining the order of preference of at least 90% of the candidates. This can take some time – for example, in the 2013 federal election, New South Wales had 110 candidates.</p>
<p>This is the first defect of the system. Research into the psychology of decision making has shown that people struggle to make rational choices even with two options. </p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/211/4481/453">1981 Science article</a>, psychologists <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_Tversky">Amos Tversky</a> and Nobel laureate <a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2002/kahneman-bio.html">Daniel Kahneman</a> asked participants to make a choice in the following situation:</p>
<p>Imagine the US is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease are proposed:</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37939/original/p5tpp6qd-1387242981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37939/original/p5tpp6qd-1387242981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37939/original/p5tpp6qd-1387242981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37939/original/p5tpp6qd-1387242981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37939/original/p5tpp6qd-1387242981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37939/original/p5tpp6qd-1387242981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37939/original/p5tpp6qd-1387242981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37939/original/p5tpp6qd-1387242981.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Valeri-DBF</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<blockquote>
<p>If Program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved.</p>
<p>If Program B is adopted, there is 1/3 probability that 600 people will be saved, and 2/3 probability that no people will be saved.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In this study 72% of participants chose Program A and 28% Progam B. In another study the same information was presented in a different way:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If Program A is adopted 400 people will die.</p>
<p>If Program B is adopted there is 1/3 probability that nobody will die, and 2/3 probability that 600 people will die.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Given that the information is the same you may expect that the percentage of people choosing each option is similar. In fact, there was a massive reverse of preferences: 22% chose Program A and 78% chose Program B.</p>
<p>This is one among a number of decision making studies showing that most people find it difficult to make rational choices. Taking this into account, the design of instruments for people to make choices (such as electoral systems) should be as simple as possible, so people’s choices reflect their true preferences. </p>
<p>Needless to say, having to establish preferences for 110 options is not simple at all. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, the great majority of people refuse to vote “below the line”, instead they vote “above the line” by writing “1” in the box of the party they prefer. By doing so, people accept the preferences predetermined by their preferred party.</p>
<h2>Disproportionate outcomes</h2>
<p>Although proportional representation is achieved, the system delivers bizarre outcomes. In Victoria the <a href="http://www.australianmotoringenthusiastparty.org.au/">Australian Motoring Enthusiast party</a> obtained a seat with only 0.51 % of first preference votes. </p>
<p>Similarly, pending the outcome of a Court of Disputed Returns hearing, the <a href="http://www.australiansportsparty.com/">Australian Sports Party</a> may have obtained a seat in Western Australia with 0.23% of first preferences.</p>
<p>Another problem of the system is that minuscule changes of preference can produce a dramatic change of outcomes. This is called <a href="http://www.deakin.edu.au/buslaw/aef/workingpapers/papers/wp2201.pdf">quasi-chaotic behaviour</a> and is exactly what happened in Western Australia. </p>
<p>A difference of 12 votes (that is, less than 0.0001% of the total vote) produces a change of two seats. The Australian Sports Party and the Greens were assigned the fifth and sixth seats, respectively, over the Labor Party and the Palmer United Party (a verdict that is currently being disputed in the courts). </p>
<p>Curiously, the 12-vote difference was not between those parties, but rather between two other minor parties.</p>
<h2>A better method</h2>
<p>This proposal has the following features: elimination of party tickets, simplification of voting and simplification of counting, while maintaining the preferential system and proportional representation.</p>
<p>Voting is simplified by requesting voters to establish their preferences for parties, not for candidates. This would reduce — in New South Wales, for instance — the choice space from 110 options to 42 options. </p>
<p>This may seem an important cost, but in fact previous elections showed that most people choose not to give preferences to candidates. A corollary of this is the avoidance of “<a href="http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/the-tablecloth-election,5714">tablecloth</a>” ballot papers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37922/original/7tv5kbwb-1387239520.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37922/original/7tv5kbwb-1387239520.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37922/original/7tv5kbwb-1387239520.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37922/original/7tv5kbwb-1387239520.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37922/original/7tv5kbwb-1387239520.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37922/original/7tv5kbwb-1387239520.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37922/original/7tv5kbwb-1387239520.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37922/original/7tv5kbwb-1387239520.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Huge ballot papers are nothing new – here’s one from 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">yewenyi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There are several ways to maintain proportional representation without the “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote">single transferable vote</a>”. The one that requires fewer changes is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borda_count">Borda count</a>. Here’s how the Borda count works:</p>
<p>Let’s assume there are 20 parties, and voters assign a rank from 1 to 20 to each of the parties. The full 20 points are assigned to the party ranked first, 19 points to the party ranked second, 18 points to the party ranked third, and so on until 1 point is assigned to the party ranked 20th. </p>
<p>After this, the total number of points received by each party is easily calculated by adding up the points that each party received by each voter.</p>
<p>Then, a quota is calculated (alternatively, divisor systems like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D'Hondt_method">D’Hondt</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sainte-Lagu%C3%AB_method">Sainte-Laguë</a> could be used) by dividing the total number of points by the number of seats plus 1 (this is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droop_quota">Droop quota</a>; other quotas – the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_quota">Hare</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperiali_quota">Imperiali quota</a> – could be used). </p>
<p>Finally, seats are assigned to each party according to the number of quotas obtained by each party, and the remaining seats are allocated to the parties with the highest remainders. This counting method is so simple that anyone can do it with an Excel file at home.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37942/original/9qztvxcy-1387243606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37942/original/9qztvxcy-1387243606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/37942/original/9qztvxcy-1387243606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37942/original/9qztvxcy-1387243606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37942/original/9qztvxcy-1387243606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37942/original/9qztvxcy-1387243606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37942/original/9qztvxcy-1387243606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/37942/original/9qztvxcy-1387243606.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A simpler system would reduce polling day queues.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">andy@atbondi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead of asking voters to rank parties, a more progressive alternative consists of asking participates to evaluate them — for instance, by giving 2 points to their most preferred parties, 1 point to parties in a second level of preference and 0 points to the least preferred parties. Any scale can be used, including ones with positive and negative numbers. </p>
<p>This system is called <a href="http://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/653/1/thecaseforutilitarianvoting.pdf">utilitarian voting</a> or evaluative voting, of which the <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=e7h7evxSclIC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=approval+voting&ots=cSyDsRgp9R&sig=88MAsFbtnm9S0t2FrQKcIaM8pQc#v=onepage&q=approval%20voting&f=false">approval voting</a> method (assigning 1 to the candidates one approves and 0 to those one disapproves) is the simplest and most popular form. </p>
<p>This system is more progressive because, in the ranking method, people are not allowed to express indifference. That is, most people may feel indifferent towards two parties they haven’t heard of before, or they may equally like two parties. </p>
<p>In the current ranking system, voters are obliged to decide which one they prefer, but in utilitarian voting, two parties can have the same score, with the counting then following the same procedure as the Borda count.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/80/30/24/PDF/cahier_2013-05.pdf">research</a> conducted during the 2012 French presidential elections, it was found that “inclusive candidates” — such as current president François Hollande — would have been favoured by this system, and “exclusive candidates” — such as nationalist Marine Le Pen — would have fared worse if the evaluative voting had been used. </p>
<p>In Australian politics, communications minister Malcolm Turnbull would be considered an inclusive candidate because he would receive good evaluations from Liberal voters for his generally liberal views, but also by progressive voters in the Labor and Green parties for his views on climate change and same-sex marriage. </p>
<p>On the other hand, Prime Minister Tony Abbott would be considered an exclusive candidate, receiving top evaluations from conservative voters but low evaluations from most others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/20776/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guillermo Campitelli received funding from the Argentine National Research Council (CONICET).</span></em></p>It’s been a crazy year for decision making. Not only did we have an election, we now have the threat of a double dissolution if the Federal Senate keeps knocking back bills from the House of Representatives…Guillermo Campitelli, Senior Lecturer of Psychology, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.