FWIW - Ballot position different than poll position, so different outcome?

[HeraldSquare212]

Ballot Changes Cited in Vote's Discrepancy With Polls
Clinton's Favorable Placement on Ballots May Account for Part of Poll Mistakes

http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Decision2008/story?id=4107883&page=1

Without a doubt, a big source of the discrepancy between the pre-election surveys and the election outcome in New Hampshire is the order of candidates' names on the ballot and in the surveys.

-snip-

Until this year, New Hampshire rotated candidate name order from precinct to precinct, which allowed us to do that analysis.

This year, the secretary of state changed the procedure so the names were alphabetical starting with a randomly selected letter, in all precincts.


The randomly selected letter this year was Z.

As a result, Joe Biden was first on every ballot, Hillary Clinton was near the top of the list (and the first serious contender listed) and Barack Obama was close to last of the 21 candidates listed.

Thus, I'll bet that Clinton got at least 3 percent more votes than Obama simply because she was listed close to the top.

-snip-




So, what was wrong with rotating the names randomly? Cheaper to print in bulk, maybe?

[robbedvoter]

1. In NY, ballot positions vary from one precinct to another

[Fresh_Start]

2. more difficult to count since each precinct different counting

algorithm

[NoPasaran]

3. Biden really lucked out then, having his name first

Otherwise he would have finished at -3%

"Without a doubt"

[TahitiNut]

4. Optical scanning is based on POSITION ... the 'geometry' of the ballot.

Each ballot has (or should have) a code that the optical scanning software should correlate to a coded geometric profile in order to interpret marks as votes for the corresponding candidate. If the systems instead are designed to take the ballot 'code' from the operator (i.e. be primed/booted to count all ballots against the same geometric criteria) then mixing ballots in any specific scanner would result in mistabulations.

It's all in the design and implementation. It can result in "tail wagging dog" decisions like ballot uniformity.

[BadgerLaw2010]

5. So Obama voters were too stupid to find him on the ballot?

Oh wait, that's just the Obama whiners.

This shit is really pathetic.

[2rth2pwr]

8. Florida butterfly ballot redux. nt

[laconicsax]

6. So then Edwards should have done much better, right?

With so many candidates on the ballot (21 plus 'write-in'), and Obama 18th, it's a wonder that over 100 thousand voters managed to find his name at all on the ballot.

By that logic, Giuliani and Huckabee should have done better since they were 5th and 7th on the Asshat party ballot and McCain and Romney were 12th and 16th. For that matter, Giuliani should have done better than Huckabee.

But I'm sure that the alphabet is a more likely cause of Obama not winning by a huge margin than bad pre-election polling exaggerating his standing.

[Bitwit1234]

7. Can the doodle boppers find another excuse for Obama's lost

Say what you want, the Hillary and Edwards supporters were upset that Iowa let unregistered students pull up in busses, register and vote. But that was the law in Iowa and they won't change it. But you never ever ever ever saw any Hillary supporters go on and on and on and on and on about all the different reasons Hillary did not come out on top in Iowa. Looks like the doodle boppers have blames everything and everybody going. Next they'll blame God for having a nice day...has anyone heard that excuse yet.

And by the way. Since George Washington only about 5 candidates who came at the top of the alphabet have won most are from the bottom of the alphabet. So what do the doodle boppers want now to rearrange the alphabet. They are putting dibs on all the words and saying Obama owns them , CHANGE, HOPE, ETC. I guess the alphabet comes next. But lets not take out the letters that spell S O U R.....G R A P E S.....

[HeraldSquare212]

9. it's an attempt to explain the difference between the polls and the result,

not an attempt to suggest that Clinton won because of ballot position.

[THUNDER HANDS]

10. when I run for president, I'm changing my name to Aaaaaaaaaa