4 Electronic Voting Methods – Which One is the Best?

Voting is a complicated thing. After you manage to make it to the voting booth, you may be faced with any of several types of voting machines, each with a range of possible ballot designs. It can create an awful lot of confusion. The new electronic voting machines have been praised by many, criticized by some, and used by millions. But electronic voting in itself isn’t a silver bullet. Although electronic voting does seem to reduce the uncertainties of older, mechanical voting systems, electronic interfaces can confuse and frustrate the elderly and those with less technological competence, which creates a whole new set of problems.

That’s where Tiffany Jastrzembski of the Air Force Research Laboratory and Neil Charness of Florida State University come in. In the Fall 2007 edition of the journal “Ergonomics in Design” (which is a real page-turner, lemmetellya), they present a great comparison of different types of electronic voting techniques. They focus specifically on reducing confusion and errors among the elderly, which have the highest voter turnout rate of any age group. (In 2004, for instance, turnout as 69% among those 65 and older, while for those ages 18-24 it was merely 42%.)

They tested four different methods of electronic voting:

1. A touch-screen interface on which the entire ballot was displayed. Voters used a light pen to record their votes, then confirm their choices by clicking on an Accept Vote box at the bottom.
2. A touch-screen interface on which only one office (President, Senator, etc.) at a time. This one also used the light pen, and each individual question had its own Accept Vote box.
3. A hybrid system that displayed the entire ballot at once. Voters used a keypad to record their votes, then used the light pen to click the Accept Vote box when finished.
4. A hybrid system that showed one office at a time. Again, voters used the keypad and finished up with the light pen.

They found that Method 2 caused the least confusion and fewest errors among all age groups. Being able to focus on and confirm one office at a time helped voters minimize their mistakes.

Can you guess which method was the worst?

So now we know how to design electronic voting systems that minimize confusion and errors. And you thought I was going to write about the Iowa Caucuses.