Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't by John Jr. (books that read to you TXT) 📕

—San Francisco Chronicle, June 20, 2004

Ballot fraud by individuals is clearly a problem in the American electoral system. But many people believe there is a far more extensive crisis in American voting. There is a corrosive perception that the voting system selectively prevents certain people, especially African Americans, from voting through the widespread manipulation of voting machines. Democratic operatives repeatedly asserted that punch card machines disenfranchised large numbers of Florida voters in the 2000 presidential election. Since then, litigants with complaints about punch card voting machines tried unsuccessfully to derail California’s 2003 special gubernatorial election, which was eventually won by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Other states, such as Ohio, faced similar litigation from the American Civil Liberties Union during the 2004 election.56

Polls show that a high percentage of Americans believe that systematic disenfranchisement is occurring. A 2006 poll found that only 30 percent of African Americans and 45 percent of Democrats feel confident that their votes will be counted. Among all voters, the number is still low at 60 percent.57 The question of disenfranchisement, it seems, has become an increasingly pressing political issue.

Concerns over punch card ballots have led to billions of dollars being spent to develop new voting methods, reversing a decades-long increase in the prevalence of punch cards. The number of voters using punch cards plummeted from 34 million in 2000 to just over 4 million in 2006. Optical scan ballots, used by 69.5 million people, are now the most frequent method for voting. Electronic machines are a close second, with 66.6 million users.58 All these efforts to eliminate punch cards, however, were counter-productive because punch cards perform better in many ways than the machines that are replacing them.

Some legitimate problems with voting machines do exist. Perhaps the most famous of these is the occurrence of “non-voted” ballots—punch cards on which a vote is recorded either for more than one candidate in a single race or for none at all. During the 2000 presidential election in Florida, representatives from both parties—as well as their lawyers—spent hours discussing ballots that lacked a recorded vote for the presidential race. Some argued that non-voted ballots stemmed from problems in using punch card machines, while others maintained that they largely reflected a voter’s choice simply not to vote for the top race on the ballot.

Nationally, the non-voted ballot rate for typical presidential elections is about 3 percent for punch cards, 2.9 percent for electronic voting machines (DREs), 2.1 percent for optical scans, and 1.9 percent for paper ballots and lever machines.59 In a study of the 2004 presidential elections in Ohio, I arrived at a similar finding. Votomatic punch cards, used in 69 of Ohio’s 88 counties, averaged a 2.4 percent rate of non-voted ballots, compared to 2 percent for optical scans, 1.5 percent for levers, and 1.1 percent for electronic machines.60

These findings, however, do not tell the entire story. The debate has overwhelmingly focused on the presidential race, which is understandable in light of the worldwide publicity generated by the 2000 Florida vote. But if we look at races lower down the ballot than the presidential race, such as those for Congress and state legislatures, we find that Votomatic punch card machines actually perform much better than electronic or lever machines and are about as reliable as optical scans.

People naturally cast fewer votes for races lower down the ballot because they don’t know or care as much about those positions as they do about the presidency. But the drop-off rate varies systematically according to the type of voting machine. And, most interestingly, this drop-off is much less evident for punch cards than for other types of machines. The rate of non-voted ballots for Ohio Senate races on Votomatic punch card machines was just under 10 percent, compared to 18 percent for electronic and lever machines. Looking across all of Ohio’s races, switching from Votomatic punch cards to electronic or lever machines—as so many precincts have done nationwide—would have resulted in about 200 more non-voted ballots in the average Ohio ward of 1,696 voters.61

Why do punch cards do so well at the bottom of the ballot? The answer lies in what I call “voter fatigue.” People will vote in fewer races when it takes them more time or effort to vote. Recent research indicates that electronic machines encounter problems with “the willingness of voters to navigate through multiple ballot screens before casting a vote (and) delays caused by the use of the review feature when coupled with extended ballots.”62 These extra screens and reviews mean it takes up to 20 percent longer to use electronic voting machines than punch cards. Consequently, voters on electronic machines get tired faster, and some don’t make it to the end of the ballot. The ability of elderly voters to master the technology of electronic voting has also been questioned, as “older adults consistently perform more poorly than younger adults in performing computer-based tasks.”63 Whatever their other faults, punch cards are relatively quick and simple to use.

Contrary to popular belief, Votomatic punch card machines were also the only voting method for which African Americans had consistently lower rates of non-voted ballots than whites had.64

With all the debate over voting machines and non-voted ballots, one would think that the machines must be too complicated for many people to figure out. But education is not systematically related to the rate of non-voted ballots. The pattern appears completely random, with the rate high for those with less than a ninth grade education, low for those with some high school, high for high school graduates, low for college graduates, and high again for those with post-graduate degrees. Nor does income level consistently correspond to the rate of non-voted ballots although, quite interestingly, the richest voters are fifteen times more likely to cast a non-voted ballot than the poorest ones.65

Ironically, the switch to electronic machines not only failed to rectify the problems they were supposed to solve, but they have sparked