Ballot and polling place design guidelines

The following best practices report was created by AIGA Design for Democracy on behalf of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). It contains guidelines and samples for the design of ballots—optical scan and touchscreen (direct-recording electronic or DRE)—and polling place voter information materials. Legislation, design principles and extensive research with voters, experts, election officials, poll workers and voting equipment providers heavily inform these resources. The report also summarizes research findings and offers insights about design planning and implementation. For summary recommendations, view the top 10 election design guidelines. For help implementing the guidelines in this report, see suggestions for using Design for Democracy’s ballot and election design guidelines.

Full best practices report

• Effective Designs for the Administration of Federal Elections (6.6 MB, 266 pages)

Project case study

Reveals the two-year project’s history, election design challenges and key insights about using the final report and samples.

• Case Study: AIGA Design for Democracy develops best practices for ballot and polling place design on behalf of the EAC (2.9 MB, 41 pages)

Report by section

Select desired report section(s) 1–8 and download. Sample and image files are offered further below.

1. Introduction
   Provides an overview of the report scope and research methods; advises on how to use the report.

   • 1-Introduction (56 KB, 8 pages)

2. Voter information materials
   Includes planning tools, best practices and sample, HAVA-compliant, printable files for polling place posters, tabletop information and more, in one or two languages.
   Select desired material samples from the table below.

   • 2–Voter Information Materials (2.1 MB, 65 pages)

3. Optical scan ballots
   Includes planning tools, best practices and design guidelines covering the four basic content areas of a ballot (election information, ballot instructions, ballot navigation and voting questions); provides sample designs and specifications for ballots in one or two languages, and one or two colors.
   Select desired ballot samples and images from the table below.

   • 3–Optical Scan Ballots (976 KB, 57 pages)

4. Full-face DRE ballots
   Includes planning tools, best practices and design guidelines covering the four basic content areas of a ballot (election information, ballot instructions, ballot navigation and voting questions); provides sample designs and specifications for ballots in one or two colors.
   Select desired ballot samples from the table below.

   • 4–Full-face DRE Ballots (384 KB, 25 pages)

5. Rolling DRE ballots
   Note: Sample ballots illustrated in this section are more conceptual than those provided for optical scan ballots, as variation across touchscreen voting equipment is much broader.
   Includes planning tools and best practices; describes the sequence of ballot screens and interactions required to deliver content and support tasks in the voting process (select language, vote, review, cast); offers sample screens and specifications.
   Select ballot samples featuring example screens and states from the table below.

   • 5–Rolling DRE Ballots (2.4 MB, 37 pages)

6. Research report: Nebraska pilot test
   Offers insights resulting from the real-election use of draft optical scan ballot and polling place material designs—from production process to Election Day.

   • 6–Nebraska pilot test (476 KB, 17 pages)

7. Research report: Nine research events
   Summary of the nine other research activities comprising the user-centered process that helped ground best practice recommendations in legislative, budgetary, technical and voter realities.

   • 7–Nine research events (1.4 MB, 54 pages)

8. Appendix
   Introduces author/contractor AIGA Design for Democracy and all report contributors.

   • 8–Appendix (36 KB, 3 pages)

Sample and image files by section

For report sections 2–5, files containing sample materials and ballot designs are provided for viewing and editing. For section 3 (optical scan ballots), image files containing instructional illustrations and icons are also provided.

All sample files are available in both PDF and InDesign formats, image files are in TIFF and Illustrator formats. Election officials may wish to view PDFs and TIFFs. Only professional designers should seek InDesign (INDD) and Illustrator (EPS) files.

Designers will need InDesign and Illustrator CS2 (or higher) software for Mac or PC. Ideally, designers will have access to the Univers font family (Light, Bold for ballots; Roman, Black for voter information materials); other sans serif fonts may be substituted. Software and fonts may be purchased at www.adobe.com. (Note: AIGA members receive a discount on Adobe products.)

Section 2: Voter information materials
Note: 80 samples are offered. For information regarding their display, printing instructions and fulfillment of HAVA mandates, please refer to report section 2, pages 2.6–2.7.

All voter information materials as PDFs (2.6 MB, ZIP)
All voter information materials as InDesign CS2 files (49.2 MB, ZIP)

Section 3: Optical scan ballot samples and images
Note: Please refer to the design specifications found in report section 3, pages 3.6–3.57 while working with samples and images.

All optical scan ballot samples as PDFs (1 MB, ZIP)
All optical scan ballot samples as InDesign CS2 files (7.1 MB, ZIP)

All optical scan ballot images as TIFF files (764 KB, ZIP)
All optical scan ballot images as Illustrator CS2 files (2.6 MB, ZIP)

Section 4: Full-face DRE ballot samples
Note: Please refer to the design specifications found in report section 4, pages 4.6–4.25 while working with samples.

All full-face DRE ballot samples as PDFs (164 KB, ZIP)
All full-face DRE ballot samples as InDesign CS2 files (4.8 MB, ZIP)

Section 5: Rolling DRE ballot (touchscreen) samples
Note: These files contain 40 pages of screens and states supporting the range of tasks associated with touchscreen voting. These samples are more conceptual than those provided for optical scan ballots, as variation across touchscreen voting equipment is much broader. Please refer to the flow diagram provided in report section 5, pages 5.7–5.8, as well as to design specifications throughout this report section, while working with samples.

Rolling DRE ballot samples as PDF files (3.6 MB, ZIP)
Rolling DRE ballot samples as InDesign CS2 files (7.8 MB, ZIP)