Electronic Voting- The Future? Not yet!

This is my first venture into the blogosphere (and about time I think). I have been doing a PhD in HCI and user emotion for the past 2 years and only now I have felt that it is time to create a blog (dear oh dear!). I am aiming this blog to be informative and current. Looking at the the technology news, articles and journals with a critical eye.

So here goes.

Technology in voting seems long overdue. Be it Internet voting or electronic voting machines in polling stations, the application and effects it could have are astoundingly broad. It doesn't take much imagination to think of the effects it could have in voter turn out, perhaps relegating this problem to the dustbin of time, especially with the use of Internet voting. Think about it..........instant results, no JeremyVine in a cowboy outfit, or Peter Snow needing to pretend to manhandle graphs the size of jupiter (which are clearly blue screen) on live television whilst Dimbleby is smirking in the corner.

There are however reasons to be cautious about the use of technology in voting as highlighted in the Guardian this week. Software issues and the possibility of fraud in the electronic voting systems (not to mention threat of viruses and stealing of data in potential Internet voting) leave a lot to be desired in terms of voter security. This considered, problems in electronic voting are also be HCI based. When using electronic voting systems, users need to be able to register their choice and be sure their choice has been registered. These interfaces need to be intuitive and very easy to learn. As Conrad et al (2009) state in their recent paper " It is hard to imagine a domain of human computer interaction where usability has more impact on how democracy works" (p.111). Both the Guardian article and the Conrad paper highlight what a dire state of affairs electronic voting is in terms of usability. Users feel lost, are unable to correct mistakes made in voting and subsequently are disatisfied by the systems used. The wealth of different interfaces available makes usability a key issue as it may even affect outcome of an election if users cannot vote effectively on one system compared to another used in a different polling station.

Is there a better example of where one interface needs to become the national norm and one system needs to become the national platform? Usability engineering priciples need to be used to design bettern voting systems if the benefits of electronic voting are to ever take off. We as professionals and researchers need to step up to guide designers in these systems so that e-voting can become a reality.