Comments on: Voting System Demonstrations (Part 1)

By: David Robarts

David Robarts — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 21:05:14 +0000

Two obvious advantages of a voting machine vs. a scanner are:

1) handicapped accessibility - you can’t activate an audio mode for a piece of paper, once the ballots are printed you can’t change the size of type.

2) it is a step closer to online absentee ballots (which may or may not be a good thing).

By: Usable Security » Blog Archive » Voting System Demonstrations (Part 2)

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 10:09:48 +0000

[...] sable Security
Every system has a user.

« Voting System Demonstrations (Part 1) Voting System Demonst [...]

By: Usable Security » Blog Archive » Voting System Demonstrations (Part 2)

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 03:57:03 +0000

[...] sable Security
Every system has a user.

« Voting System Demonstrations (Part 1) Voting System Demonst [...]

By: Ping

Ping — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 19:56:25 +0000

I’ve been thinking about this question myself a fair bit.

After i’m done posting pictures and descriptions of the machines, i’m planning to post an entry pondering the advantages and disadvantages of electronic voting versus paper ballots. It’s a more complex issue than i originally believed.

By: Damian Cugley

Damian Cugley — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 14:50:01 +0000

Sorry, my choice of made-up candiate names was poor; the second name should be Ms Brown. :-)

By: Damian Cugley

Damian Cugley — Wed, 16 Nov 2005 14:48:14 +0000

This makes me glad I vote in the UK, where it is so much simpler. Having more than one or two contests in one vote is very unusual over here, so there has been no need to move beyond the hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballot, which has the great attraction of being seen to be secure (in the sense that all the security precautions are visible and understandable, rather than hidden inside the computers and only understood by computer professionals).

I don’t really see what the attraction of the touch-screen machines is, unless it is sheer high-tech glamour. The scanning system would appear to me to have a lot fewer usability issues, and also would allow for many people to be scratching their heads over their ballot at once without one person hogging the machine (since the scanner is only needed at the very end). Also I have read of people complaining of calibration errors in some touch-screen designs (trying to click on Mr Smith and seeing Ms Smith’s name light up). Maybe buttons clustered around the screen would be more reliable.

By: Jason Kitcat

Jason Kitcat — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 20:57:42 +0000

This is very interesting and helpful information - thank you.

By: joe

joe — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 19:15:48 +0000

Great summary! And your pictures look vastly superior to mine! Our collaborator at Rice would be greatly interested in your photos…