ProjectProposal-HengKuang
From CS160 User Interfaces Fa06
Contents |
Intro
Election is the base of democracy, but election has been a problematic process since its existence. The reliability of an election system is very vital because it influences whether the election is a fair reflection of the voting’s desires.
Target User Group
Voters – of different ages, education levels, and availabilities.
Potential voters – who do not vote due to time constraints, traffics, and lack of confidence and low comfortable levels in the voting system.
A voter is most concerned about whether his/her vote is accounted for the desired candidate. A voter's other concerns include ease to use the voting system, waiting time in vote stations, accessibility of vote stations, identity validation of other voters, the time needed for the result to come out, etc.
Some voters are very comfortable using the new touch screen voting system, while some others think that the traditional paper ballot and pen is the safest and most comfortable way to vote.
Problem Description
There are many problems associated with elections. Machine malfunction, ballot error, late counting, low turnout are most often seen election problems.
This is a list of the reported election problems nation wide.
Problem Context and Forces
The traditional election system is not very productive. Loading ballots onto ballot scanners is labor consuming when the number of ballots is large. Having to transport ballots from vote station to counting station is time consuming and often contributes to missing ballots. When ballot scanners fail to read some ballots, there ballots need to be entered manually. In Crittenden County, Arkansas, November 2004, more than 11% of the optical scan ballots failed to register a vote for president.
In recent years, electronic voting device such as touch screens were introduced. However, current touch screen voting machines are not very reliable, and related errors have been reported on multiple occasions. Some of the new systems are difficult to set up, and the failure of opening the poll on time turn away disappointed voters. In Stark County, Ohio, 2005, poll workers couldn't set up the machines until mid-morning, even with the help of 42 other workers.
Although more and more commonly seen and used, touch screens are not he most comfortable device to vote with for some people, especially for older generations. Vote unfamiliarity with voting device results in longer wait time at vote stations.
The lack of instance feedback in most voting systems contributes to low voter turnout. Many voters have the idea of “my vote doesn’t matter”. A voting system that provides instance validation and verification will encourage more voters to participate in elections.
VoteHereis working on such technology.
Solution Sketch
ConfidentVote is a voting system that enables voting on traditional paper and pen, uses wireless technology to register votes instantaneously and provides timely tracking info to voters.
At vote stations, biometrics or ID can be used as identification. For absentee voters, paper ID and pen ID in combination can be used as validation. As more and more people own digital pens, voting becomes a process as simple and as convenient as sending an email.
