Why the article is helpful
- Discusses benefits and drawbacks of voting machines
- Issue of technology acceptance by different demographic groups
- Older adults and those of lower socioeconomic status, are less familiar with electronic devices, and may therefore less readily accept the new technology
In this article, the authors captured present issues and challenges that electronic voting ballots faced: inconsistent terminology, color usage, inserting/removing card, instructions, layout, system information, glare on screen, making changes, poor graphics, privacy issues, and audio-only systems. After evaluating the Diebold AccuVote-TS electronic voting system by using three methods of research (field study, expert review, and close observation), the study found 10% of participants were not confident about their vote. The authors urges our community to help make these systems better in order to increase voter confidence.
Links to article
Bederson, B. B., Lee, B., Sherman, R. M., Herrnson, P. S., & Niemi, R. G. (2003). Electronic voting system usability issues. In Human Factors in Computing Systems: Proceedings of CHI 2003, (pp. 145–152). New York: ACM. doi:10.1145/642611.642638