My previous post mentioned a problem with a way to decide how to vote on ballot propositions. I guess it’s not surprising that they should be a source of confusion to people. As Marcus Schmidt observes in Institutionalizing Fair Democracy: The Theory of the Minipopulous:
It is highly improbable that a comparable kind of error could have happened if the ballot contained prepositions instead of persons [As Cronin shows, however, ballot-prepositions can also generate considerable confusion amongst the electorate. [...]
I’ll be the first to admit that I, too, would be confused if I had to select prepositions on the ballot. Should I support or oppose “for”? What about “of”, “under”, and “in”?
I shouldn’t pick on Schmidt, as it is probable that English isn’t his first language. His paper was the first that came up on a search for “ballot preposition”, a phrase I’d overheard in a conversation recently.
Ballot confusion
My previous post mentioned a problem with a way to decide how to vote on ballot propositions. I guess it’s not surprising that they should be a source of confusion to people. As Marcus Schmidt observes in Institutionalizing Fair Democracy: The Theory of the Minipopulous:
I’ll be the first to admit that I, too, would be confused if I had to select prepositions on the ballot. Should I support or oppose “for”? What about “of”, “under”, and “in”?
I shouldn’t pick on Schmidt, as it is probable that English isn’t his first language. His paper was the first that came up on a search for “ballot preposition”, a phrase I’d overheard in a conversation recently.