Election Updates

We are happy to have been named today by Doug Chapin and electionline.org as "Election Geeks"!

In today's electionline.org newsletter, titled "In Praise of Election Geeks", Thad and I were singled out for praise:

"a second dynamic duo - Utah's Thad Hall and Caltech's Michael Alvarez - are sharing their ideas with an ever-growing audience of fellow geeks. [Hall and Alvarez get special mention because their new blog - unique among any geeks' I've discovered to date - now offers regular podcasts that you can download and listen to on your iPod. Now that's geekdom.]"

We are very pleased to have made this list, and we look forward to maintaining our position as two of electionline.org's favorite election geeks!

In an interesting development, the City and County of San Francisco Department of Elections has launched an initiative to make voting system usability a priority for their office. They have put up a website about "Usability and Voting Equipment", and have developed an interesting slideshow training session for Department of Elections staff (which we have converted to an easier-to-view pdf file).

In a letter (dated August 25, 2005), John Arntz (Director of the Department of Elections, City and County of San Francisco) briefly discusses the approach so far that they have taken: "the Department held a pilot program to allow the public to use two voting systems related to our Request for Proposal to purchase a new voting system. We also invited usability professional to attend the event and give their professional opinions concerning various usability aspects of the voting equipment." The letter concluded by urging the voting system vendors to pay more attention to better study usability and accessibility.

We applaud this effort, and we are always excited when election officials include the public and researchers in their constant efforts to improve elections in the United States.

But we also need to work to do better. We need to work with vendors and election officials to develop collaborations that have the same sort of large sample and controlled experimental research designs that we would expect to see in our own research (or that in peer-reviewed journals). We also need to work with vendors and election officials to convince them that it is in everyone's best interest when research projects on usability (and other aspects of voting system performance) that reports and data from those studies be made easily available to other researchers and the public.

Examples of such collaborative and public usability research efforts include Thad's study for Alexandria, Virginia of the Hart Intercivic voting system in November 2002; VTP colleagues Ted Selker and Sharon Cohen's experimental study of voter verification; Selker, Jonathan Goler and Lorin Wilde's study of voting interfaces for disabled voters; and the research coming from Paul Herrnson, Ben Bederson, Fred Conrad, Richard Niemi, and Michael Traugott on voting technology and ballot design. At later dates we will have more commentary about this area of research, especially as new studies come out.

Two immediate things come to mind, though, as we review this recent research. First, we need to figure better ways to develop industry, government, and academic collaborations --- bridging these different fields can be difficult. Second, we need some methodological development in this area, to help guide future research efforts.

Vermont is on the verge of an "experiment" with a novel voting technology for voters who for whatever reason cannot vote using a traditional paper ballot --- voting on a special telephone keypad in a voting booth. The techology, called "Inspire Vote-by-Phone, is costing the state $525,000 to purchase and $110,000 in annual maintanence fees. This voting system is produced by IVS LLC. The system, as described in a recent article in the Burlington Free Press, works as follows:

"A blind voter checks in at the polls and is escorted to the voting booth. The poll worker dials the central computer, punches in his or her identification number and the identification number for the local ballot -- then hands the telephone to the voter and leaves the booth.

The voter receives instructions and makes selections among candidates listed by name and party affiliation. Most choices are made by punching the number "5" in the center of the telephone key pad. This key is often distinguishable from others by a raised bump.

The voter has many opportunities to verify the names of the candidates he or she has selected before punching a key that casts the ballot. There is even a chance to verify and scrap the ballot after casting it. A paper ballot is printed at the central server location and then scanned, and the voter may listen to selections marked on the paper ballot to double-check that they match the voter's choices."

Of course, this system requires that qualified voters actually show up at a polling place, which does raise some questions about whether some disabled voters might not be able to take advantage of this particular system.

If interested, there is a sample ballot that you can check out:

• Dial 888-661-6366
  
• Enter 1234 for the poll-taker identification number when prompted
  
• Enter 101 for ballot identification number
  
• Follow the instructions for casting votes
  

If any readers of Election Updates try this system and have question or comments, please email them to electionupdates@gmail.com.

This is an interesting approach to accessible voting, and we await some real data on how it works in Vermont. As far as we are aware, there are few studies of the use of audio technologies for voting, other than Ted Selker's work on the "Voter Verifiable Audio Audit Transcript Trail" (VVAATT); now that there are at least two audio technologies for voting now proposed, it seems to us to be an opportunity for some experimental study of the relative merits of these different systems.

The Century Foundation (my former employer) recently issued a very nice report--Balancing Access and Integrity-- that attempts to address several issues that have arisen in the post-HAVA election reform world. The report has several qualities that are to be admired.

• First, does not take a hysterical tone toward the problems that have occurred in the last two presidential elections. Instead, the report is an attempt to examine clearly the world that HAVA created and see how to move forward.

• Second, the report recognizes that HAVA has not even been fully implemented--many of its provisions do not go into effect until next year. In this spirit, the report makes recommendations that are small but practical and useful to election officals.
  

• Third, the report focuses very clearly on a key issue--access--and examines how access can be improved without making elections more prone to fraud.

What does the report recommend? (You can skip reading the report and just read the recommendations by clicking here). Here are two smart ideas that are examples:

• States need to provide clear rules for what missing or incorrect information will be a basis for disqualification and/or the need to correct or amend a registration form.

• States should implement a system by which all voters receive a receipt with a tracking number, allowing the voter and other interested parties to check on registration status through the use of that number and a publicly available. (Note: This system would let states hold groups accountable when they do not return voter registration forms in a timely manner!!)

The report also has a recommendation that is exactly on-point with yesterday's posting on ID requirements: States should not expand voter identification rules at this timefor example, by requiring all voters to show identification documentation at the pollsas there has been insufficient time for a thorough evaluation of relevant information and options relating to such rules.

For readers who want something explosive or revolutionary, this is not the report for you. But if you are looking for practical ideas for how your state can improve its election processes and procedures, it is definately worth a look. After all, the state legislating season opens in only 5 months; this report is a source of worthy legislative ideas!