You do know the Al Franken / Norm Coleman recount is still going on, don’t you?

In an election where any fool can vote, it’s important to have a system that any fool can use. Op-scan sheets seem simple enough, and heaven knows most of us have filled in plenty of the damn things before we ever purchase our first gown and mortar board. But still…

Actual ballot.

“What’s so hard in figuring out how to fill in the dot?” said David Schultz, an election law professor at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn. “It’s not that tough.”  [ Al Franken grabs lead… ]

It would be nice if David Schultz could spend some time watching web site usability testing, then he’d see how many ways perfectly simple tasks can get mangled and why. Some people are in too much of a hurry to care. Others don’t bother to read the directions. Still others think the directions are made-up rules and doing things differently has no impact.

And in the case of filling in little ovals, I am sure there are plenty of people with arthritis who have a lot of difficulty with the task indeed. Those people are a little harder to sneer at…