Talk:Ballot

Untitled

This page contained a disambiguation between Vote and Ballot (car), the latter page nonexistent, at least at the time. I replaced it with text copied from Ballot design. The history for that page, should anyone care to see it, should still exist there. -Smack 23:27, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Perspective view of so-called Butterfly Ballot?

I had not been aware that the Butterfly ballot had to be viewed at an angle.

It looks dreadfully user-UN-friendly!

Can this be the same country that alledgedly lands men on the moon?

Good balloting isn't rocket science!

It doesn't have to be viewed at an angle. It should be viewed straight-on, i.e., the top-down view also shown on this page. The "perspective" shot is greatly exaggerated—how many people viewed it such an acute angle? The more rational explanation for voter confusion is a lot simpler: people naturally will read the left-hand side from top to bottom and only then move on the right-hand side—which many won't do because the two major parties are only on the left-hand side. Gore/Lieberman was the second to appear so it was assumed the second circle was what should be punched to vote Democrat. You might then ask, "wouldn't the voter then think, 'what about all the other circles here?'". No. No, they would not. Most already know who they're voting for. They locate the party or the name then punch/check/etc. the closest circle/box.

The notion that the angle was to blame is ludicrous. 72.200.151.13 (talk) 22:42, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

BALLS

for a better image of the infamous butterfly ballot, see the cover of Jeffrey Toobin's book Too Close to Call.

Separate article needed on Butterfly Ballot

This topic deserves its own article, not just a paragraph in the general article on ballot. Esp re the ballot's contribution to the number of mistaken votes for Patrick Buchanan, which would have led to a Gore victory if the voter was not encouraged to make a mistake via poor ballot design.

Why on earth would 'butterfuly ballot' Chelsea redirect to ballot types? This is a hugely controversial and notable item that definitely deserves its own article. -- 207.34.139.78 (talk) 20:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Make it! Butterfly ballot needs its own page! --Laslo paniflex (talk) 20:33, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

history of ballots

Should we include this photo in the article? This is certainly the oldest ballot I've ever seen (still being clutched by the ghost-fingers of Themistocles, apparently) And the photo's already Wikimedia! Hooray!! But, it seems like a short article already...may be unnecessary. However it does nicely reflect the history section. --Marco Passarani (talk) 19:03, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Etymology

I removed the following passage from the text: "The word ballot almost certainly comes from Italian, and has two possible origins. One is from “ballotta”, i.e. the way chestnuts are called in Florence.[3] In 1038 the city council of Florence started meeting in the local Torre della Castagna (Chestnut tower), a gift from the Holy Roman Emperor Konrad II to the city. Votes were cast using chestnuts and the voting process became known as ballottare. The term then spread to the other imperial free cities, and stuck also to other ways of casting votes." ↵ Apart from the fact that the wording was ungrammatical, the authority given for this fanciful tale was the Merriam-Webster dictionary. I followed the link and found it simply gave the origin as from "ballotta", the ball used for casting votes in Venice. Other dictionaries, like the Oxford and the Italian Treccani and Devoto, give the same etymology.Campolongo (talk) 07:25, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

External links modified

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