The latest news on this front comes from a really interesting article, titled “Maine is Latest State to Reverse Course from Past Practice, and to Refuse to Tally Write-in Votes for Presidential Declared Write-in Candidates“, at Ballot Access News written by the widely-respected election expert and advocate for third party/independent ballot access Richard Winger. Take a look at this excerpt:
The past few presidential elections have seen a depressing retrogression on the part of states, as to whether they will tally the write-in votes for declared write-in presidential candidates. The latest to backslide is Maine, where the Secretary of State now refuses to compile the tally, even though he did so in 2016.
Other states that formerlly tallied them, but have stopped, are Massachusetts, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, and Virginia.
Absolutely recommended as well is this guide for designing ballots putting together by the Center for Civic Design. Tips include things like using big enough type and using clear and simple language. The information contained in the guide comes from research conducted by the American Institute of Graphic Arts’ Design for Democracy Project that was paid for by the U.S. federal government’s Election Assistance Commission (EAC). Briefly, they describe the guides as:
There have been excellent ballot design guidelines around since mid-2007 when the U.S. Election Assistance Commission published AIGA Design For Democracy’s work in its report, Effective Designs for the Administration of Federal Elections. Everyone involved in that project quickly figured out that, as juicy as the design specs were in that report, they needed to be boiled down to essentials that local election officials could easily act on within the constraints they had. Field Guides To Ensuring Voter Intent were inspired by that need.
Also see related Democracy Chronicles articles like those on Voting Methods, Direct Democracy, and definitely checkout our main Voting Methods section.
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