STC Usability SIG Newsletter
Usability Interface

Pulse of the SIG
Electronic Voting: Usability, Communication, Trust

By Karen Bachmann

As a resident of Florida and usability professional, I’m painfully aware of the importance of good usability in the design of voting ballots. Happily, so are an increasing number of voting officials in all levels of the U.S. government. Beyond just the undeniable importance of a usable form and voting mechanism, is the need to consider the comfort and satisfaction of voters dealing with sometimes radically changed voting systems, especially when the move is from paper-based voting systems to electronic systems.

Proponents of electronic voting systems laud their many benefits, such as ease in customizing the ballot to meet the language and special needs of all voters, potential reduction of errors by eliminating paper-handling by polling staff, speed of tallying results, and so forth. Articles about the success of electronic voting in several European countries often suggest that electronic voting systems are the only way to avoid a repeat of the confusion of the 2000 U.S. presidential elections as well as increasing voter turnout where voting extends to the Internet. The ninth circuit court of appeals halted (at least until the next appeal) the California recall and gubernatorial elections because of a lack of updated voting machinery in six counties.

However, change always brings with it increased learning time and increased potential for error. In the case of voting, changes affect poll workers as well as voters. The issue of security is also of concern. In the past month, I have read five or six articles expressing the concerns of technology experts about the security, the audit capabilities, the anonymity, and the accuracy of the most popular systems. A book, Black Box Voting: Ballot-Tampering in the 21st Century by Bev Harris, about the security and integrity of the latest voting systems is about to be published.

Faced with information for and against electronic voting systems, voters may face updated voting machines with ambivalence. On the one hand, the systems are often much easier to use and even have a coolness factor. On the other, voters want to be certain that their votes will be counted accurately and securely.

Ginny Redish collected feedback from participants in the UPA 2003 Idea Market on the Credibility of Websites and explored the relationship between usability and credibility. Whether electronic voting systems include an Internet interface or not, credibility is a key component to voter satisfaction and comfort.

Our colleagues in the UPA are discussing this issue as part of the Voting and Usability Project.  I learned about this project while writing the first draft of this article and noted that the same issues that require good usability to make electronic voting successful also require usable, complete, and appropriate communication.

The electronic voting system I used in the last local election had a short tutorial at the beginning and help available throughout the voting process. While the paper ballot design in my county was always usable (not the now infamous butterfly ballot), the online ballot provided more whitespace and further improved the layout. The county Supervisor of Elections website offered an online demonstration (now offline) and mirrored the voting interaction in the site itself (Hillsborough Voter Information). All of these technical communication elements, coupled with the usability of the system, left me satisfied with the experience and confident that my vote was correct and correctly handled.

As more voting districts move to online voting, successful systems will include usable communication at all phases and interactions with the voting process. Technical communicators contribute to a process that voters can understand, enjoy, and trust.