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Convened by the American Association for the
Advancement of Science
Main | Participants
A major lesson derived from the 2000 presidential
election is that the manner in which voters cast their ballots is important.
Many polling places nationwide employed outdated technology, including unreliable
punch-card ballots and mechanical lever machines; only about 40 percent f the
electorate used more modern computerized technology, such as optical scanning
systems or direct recording electronic (DRE) systems with "ATM-style"
touch-screen voting or other types of voter interfaces.
Congress responded to the problems associated with
the 2000 election passing the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which required (among
other things) the adoption of more modern technology by every state. Although
most of the attention of researchers and the media has focused on issues related
to ballot security, one of the major problems occurring in recent American elections
thus far have involved the interface between voters and voting systems.
The Project to Assess Voting Technology and Ballot
Design, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation
of New York, involves political scientists, human factors psychologists,
and computer scientists who are conducting a multifaceted assessment of voting
systems. We tested six voting systems and three ballot designs. These were tested
because, collectively, they represent the broad array of design principles incorporated
into contemporary voting interfaces. The voting systems tested were: the ES&S
Model 100 (a paper ballot/optical scan system), the Diebold AccuVote-TS (touch
screen), the Avante Vote-Trakker (touch screen with automatic advance mechanism
and a voter verifiable paper record), the Zoomable prototype (touch screen with
a unique zooming interface), the Hart InterCivic eSlate (mechanical buttons
and dial interface), the Nedap LibertyVote (a full-face ballot) (see figures
1a-1f). The ballots were: a standard office-bloc ballot, and office bloc-ballot
with a straight-party feature, and, in the case of the LibertyVote system, a
party-column ballot (as this system could not accommodate a straight-party feature).
The systems were analyzed using three research approaches: review by 12 human-computer
interaction (HCI) experts, usability experiments conducted with 42 voters in
a laboratory setting, and usability experiments conducted with 1,540 voters
under field conditions similar to those faced by voters on Election Day. In
the research with voters, we constructed a simulated election, in which individuals
cast their votes on each voting system device in random order. A final component
of the project used natural experiments to examine aggregate voting statistics.
Our major findings are concerned with voter satisfaction
and the need for help, the ability to vote as intended, and the impact of voter
characteristics on those factors.
Voter Satisfaction and the Need for Help
- The HCI experts and voters in the laboratory and field
experiments evaluated most of the voting systems favorably, but identified
significant weaknesses.
- Voters had more confidence in the abilities of paperless touch screen systems
to record their votes accurately than they did in other systems, including
the system using a paper ballot.
- Voters often felt the need to ask for help in completing the voting process.
- Voters are more comfortable with voting systems that let them exercise more
control over the voting process than those with automatic advance mechanisms
(e.g. Avante).
- Most voters are not more intimidated by DRE voting systems with computerized
interfaces (e.g., Diebold, Avante, and Zoomable) than those with mechanical
interfaces (Hart InterCivic and Nedap)
- The more physical movements it takes to vote, the more time voting takes,
and the less satisfied are voters.
- Voting systems that received the lowest ratings are the same ones on which
voters required the most assistance when voting.
- Voters have higher levels of satisfaction and need less help when voting
with a standard office-bloc ballot than with a ballot that has a straight-party
feature or a party-column ballot.
- Voters felt it was less difficult to cast a write-in vote on the
paper ballot/optical scan system than on the DRE systems.
The Ability to Vote
as Intended
- When using an office bloc ballot, voters cast 97% of the simple (one-office,
one candidate) votes as they intended.
- Most voter errors were the result of selecting an unintended candidate,
particularly a candidate proximate to the intended vote choice. They did not
result from undervoting or overvoting.
- Voters’ abilities to cast their votes as intended declined when they used
a ballot with a straight-party feature or sought to change a vote from the
candidate they initially selected. The decline in accuracy varied by voting
system.
- The most frequent mistake when casting a write-in vote was failing to fill
in the oval on the paper ballot/optical scan system (which signals that a
write-in has been cast).
- Voters often failed to verify a printed record of their touch screen choices
(paper trail) because they had trouble coordinating between the touch screen
and the printed record.
The Impact of Voter Characteristics
- Factors related to the digital divide are not consistently related to voter
confidence or satisfaction using the voting systems.
- Voters with little computer experience, the least educated, senior citizens,
and individuals whose first language is not English had a greater need for
help on most of the systems.
- Older, less educated, minority voters, and infrequent computer users were
more likely to cast votes in ways they had not intended.
In summary, voting systems and ballot design have
an impact on voter satisfaction, the need for help, and the ability to cast
a vote as intended. These outcomes vary in accordance with voter characteristics,
including those related to the digital divide.
Team members are Paul S. Herrnson (PI), Richard G.
Niemi, Michael J. Hanmer, Benjamin B. Bederson, Frederick G. Conrad, and Michael
W. Traugott.
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