The assholes who designed were no other than the nazis. The form that you can see above was designed for a referendum held in Austria in 1938, to decide whether the country wanted to join the Third Reich.
In order to make sure the voters would not make a bad decision (in their opinion), the nazis decided to add some hierarchy in the answers. Interestingly, they also put Hitler’s name forward and made it look like a referendum for or against Adolf Hitler.
The referendum question was:
Do you agree with the reunification of Austria with the German Reich that was enacted on 13 March 1938 and do you vote for the list of our leader Adolf Hitler?
The results:
| Choice |
Votes |
% |
| For |
4,453,912 |
99.73 |
| Against |
11,929 |
0.27 |
| Invalid/blank votes |
5,777 |
– |
| Total |
4,471,618 |
100 |
| Registered voters/turnout |
4,484,617 |
99.71 |
.
Although there were irregularities, LIFE in 1938 acknowledged that the results of the referendum and its German counterpart were “largely honest”.
This illustrates that the design of elements like voting forms can have tremendous impact on society.