How a simple design error changed us presidential election in 2000

In 2000 US presidential election between Al Gore and George Bush, lots of experts had found that Bush won the election because of a design error in ballots in Florida.

It was considered one of the closest USA presidential races in history. Only determined by a simple design mistake in election ballots.

Florida was the key to win this election, but there was a problem that made lots of voters mistakenly choose the candidate they don't want. which led them to invalidate their vote by trying to solve their mistake.

The ballot violated an important principle of design:  ALIGNMENT!

Here's a photograph of the ballots voters used to choose candidates:



Let's review what happened here.

If we look at the ballot we will find that it's designed with names on both sides with punch holes in the center. voters were supposed to perforate the appropriate punch hole to chose the candidate they want.






As you see the ballot wasn't the best thing that happened to Al Gore, Lots of people who wanted to give their vote for Al Gore mistakenly voted for Pat Buchanan.


This happened because of simple but crucial mistake in ballot design people who wanted to choose Al Gore were supposed to punch the third hole, but lots of people punished the second hole instead.




The line between George Bush's square and Al Gore's made people think that Al Gore will be chosen by punching the second hole not the third. 

After this people tried to resolve their mistake by choosing the third hole, but unfortunately this made their voice invalid.



What is the best solution to this problem?  Well, there are several solutions to make this ballot better and more appropriate for the election process.


The first solution is to divide the ballot with 2 sections and add additional punch holes to the second section. This will make it much easier for the viewer to choose accurately the chosen candidate:





The second solution is to make only one section for all candidates. this will make it much easier for people to choose their desired candidate:






Of course, there're lots of other solutions to this problem.

Imagine that the US 2000 presidential election was decided by a simple alignment error in Florida ballots. What would have happened if this error was avoided?!