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Electronic voting machines versus traditional methods: improved preference, similar performance

Published: 06 April 2008 Publication History

Abstract

In the 2006 U.S. election, it was estimated that over 66 million people would be voting on direct recording electronic (DRE) systems in 34% of the nation's counties [8]. Although these computer-based voting systems have been widely adopted, they have not been empirically proven to be more usable than their predecessors. The series of studies reported here compares usability data from a DRE with those from more traditional voting technologies (paper ballots, punch cards, and lever machines). Results indicate that there were little differences between the DRE and these older methods in efficiency or effectiveness. However, in terms of user satisfaction, the DRE was significantly better than the older methods. Paper ballots also perform well, but participants were much more satisfied with their experiences voting on the DRE. The disconnect between subjective and objective usability has potential policy ramifications.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CHI '08: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
    April 2008
    1870 pages
    ISBN:9781605580111
    DOI:10.1145/1357054
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 06 April 2008

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    Author Tags

    1. dre
    2. electronic voting
    3. preference
    4. usability
    5. voting

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    • (2024)Campus Choice: Arduino Nano College Voting Machine2024 1st International Conference on Communications and Computer Science (InCCCS)10.1109/InCCCS60947.2024.10593398(1-5)Online publication date: 22-May-2024
    • (2022)Information System for Supporting the Process of Protected VotingVìsnik Nacìonalʹnogo unìversitetu "Lʹvìvsʹka polìtehnìka". Serìâ Ìnformacìjnì sistemi ta merežì10.23939/sisn2022.11.01311(13-22)Online publication date: 15-Jun-2022
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    • (2018)What Did I Really Vote For? On the Usability of Verifiable E-Voting SchemesProceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3173574.3173750(1-13)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2018
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