This concluding chapter summarizes our findings and presents the major conclusions of our work. We then discuss a number of democratic tradeoffs related to ballot design.

This chapter provides and overview of the book and uses the case of the 2013 election reform bill in North Carolina to illustrate the key arguments of the manuscript.Partisan majorities in states often change laws regarding the ballot format to help them remain in power.This chapter also describes the basic ballot types used in the U.S. and summarizes the findings of each chapter.

This chapter examines ballot formats in the United States from 1888 to 1940.Following the adoption of the Australian secret ballot states still had to decide the particular design of the new secret ballot. We show in this chapter that the decisions had enormous consequences for voter turnout and ballot roll-off at the state level. We provide detailed case studies of California, New York, and Maryland as well as an empirical analysis of voter turnout and ballot roll-off during this period.

This chapter demonstrates how ballot formats can nudge voters.Applying concepts from behavioral economics, we argue that the structure in which choices are presented can nudge voters toward certain decisions.We then apply this theoretical structure to the major types of ballots used in the United States and develop expectations as to how various ballot formats will affect election outcomes.