Bad UX design swayed the US presidency?

I’m unsure who said this, but when a design falls short, it’s not just a bad joke—it becomes a serious problem.

In the 2000 U.S. presidential election, the voting ballot design in Florida's Palm Beach County led to an anomaly that impacted thousands of votes. The ballot's layout, where candidate names were misaligned with their punch-hole numbers, confused many voters.

The ballot was known as the “butterfly ballot” because it was laid out visually across two facing pages, with candidate names listed on both the left and right sides, like butterfly wings. The punch holes were lined up in a single center column, so voters had to connect the candidate's name with the correct punch hole across the “body” of the ballot.

While the design was meant to save space, it ended up being more confusing than anticipated. For example, in Palm Beach County, voters who wanted to vote for Democratic candidate Al Gore often mistakenly punched the hole next to Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan’s name on the opposite page. This mix-up led to many unintended votes.

Buchanan received over 2,000 votes in this county, many from precincts typically favoring Democratic candidates—a deviation attributed directly to the ballot design. The misdirected votes were greater than George W. Bush’s final certified winning margin in Florida, making this design issue crucial to the election’s outcome.

The Courts Step In

As recounts stretched into weeks, it became clear this wasn’t just a voting issue—it was a constitutional one. Both campaigns lawyered up, and Florida became a legal battleground. The fight escalated to the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore, which ultimately stopped the recount and handed Florida—and the White House—to Bush by the slimmest of margins: by 537 votes to be exact in a state of millions.

A Design Legacy

While the 2000 election was ultimately decided in court, the legacy of its chaotic ballot design has echoed through every election since. Experts pointed to that “butterfly ballot” as a case study of the consequences of poor design, warning that confusing layouts and inadequate testing could lead to missed or miscast votes.