ballots

Usability Follies in the News

March 7, 2012
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It’s election season which means more opportunities to point, laugh, and cry at the state of voting usability.  The first is sent in by Kim W.  As part of an NPR story, the reporter dug up a sample ballot. Pretty overwhelming and confusing (“vote for not more than one”??); makes me long for electronic voting. Next, Ford is sending out [...]

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A Timely Article on Voting Machines

October 29, 2008

With the U.S. election only a week away, I bring you a tale of warning from Finland. Today, the Ministry of Justice revealed that due to a usability issue, voting was prematurely aborted for 232 voters. The pilot system was in use in three municipalities; this amounts to about 2 per cent of the electoral roll. Seats in the municipal [...]

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Getting Ready for November – Ballot Designs

August 22, 2008

I‘m impressed by Slate’s detailed look at ballot design. Check out the alternative designs! The answer: not far. A study carried out by USA Today and seven other newspapers in 2001 concluded that faulty design, not punch-card machines, was responsible for voters’ confusion in Palm Beach County in 2000. Despite this finding, states have focused their election-reform energies on upgrading [...]

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The Double-Bubble Ballot

February 7, 2008

U.S. news agencies are reporting on the California ballots that ‘may have lost Obama the California primary.’ The argument is that he would have pulled in the ‘declined to state’ voters (those who have not registered as either Democrat or Republican), but that because of a human factors error with the ballot, those votes may not have been counted. (The [...]

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