Bad Ballots Cause Bad Elections
Ballot Design Can Manipulate Voters
By Robert Longley, About.com

How to Make a Bad Ballot
In their paper "Better Ballots (.pdf)," the Brennan Center for Justice details 13 different ballot design practices likely to result in confused voters and miscast or discarded ballots.


Split candidates for the same office on different pages or columns (Like the "Butterfly Ballot").

Place different contests on the same screen of touch-screen voting machines.

Place response options or instructions on both sides of candidate names.

Use "Complete the Arrow" instead of "Fill the Oval" ballot marking options.

Leave disqualified or withdrawn candidates on the ballot.

Use different candidate and contest styles throughout the ballot.

Do not use shading to help voters differentiate between contests, candidates and other voting tasks.

Do not even use bold text to help voters differentiate between contests, candidates and other voting tasks.

Make voting instructions long and complicated, using lots of legal or election jargon.

Place voting instructions far from their related actions.

Do not tell voters how to correct mistakes on paper ballots.

Do not warn voters of under voting on touch-screen voting machines. (An under vote happens when a voter fails to select any candidate for a given contest. On touch-screen voting machines, under votes often happen accidentally. Voters should be instructed to re-check their ballots carefully before declaring them complete.)

Best of all: Publish sample ballots that are different from the actual ballots.
Who Bad Ballots Hurt the Most

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepoliticalsystem/a/badballots.htm