[evandena]

Bubbles seem stupid to me. It's a lot easier and less subjective on review to fill in an arrow than it is to fill in a bubble. Here's an example ballot of what I'm talking about: http://www.town.oregon.wi.us/uploads/ckfiles/images/nov_06_s...

[morsch]

Here's what our ballots look like: http://www.leinfelden-echterdingen.de/servlet/PB/show/141628...

There's never been any real discussion about it being complicated, confusing or needing any other kind of design change. (Which isn't to say that you couldn't make arguments in that vein.)

[squidsoup]

Similar to our ballots in New Zealand http://www.elections.org.nz/files/sample_ballot_paper_copy.g...

There's not much room for error in this design - it seems to work well for us.

[evandena]

That's much clearer than some of the Scanatron bubble types.

[danielweber]

The arrow-thing is also confusing to people. I guarantee you that election officials have had to make a judgment call about them.

EDIT: Out of 1000 people, how many will get confused by this design? http://www.umsl.edu/~kimballd/polk.pdf

SECOND EDIT: misaligned arrows were also a problem in Florida in the 2000 election

[evandena]

It just seems more natural to fill in a line than to fill in a circle. Your wrist is more stable and less shaky to make a couple straight lines with a marker.

[morsch]

I was going to say you're wrong, but I agree that if I had to fill in dozens or hundreds of items, I'd prefer filling in lines. Your wrist is more stable and it seems like a very quick motion.

However, that kind of efficiency isn't required at all in a ballot. Making a couple of crosses instead of lines isn't going to make a big absolute difference in terms of the entire voting process. You want to maximize other things, first and foremost making it easy to understand and easy to recognize clearly for both the voter and the people/entities who count.