Letter to the Tioga County Director of Elections/Voting Registration
11/7/07
George -
Here's a chart of the number of voters the Blossburg precinct had per hour (PDF) yesterday. The 7-9 am block, with about 24 voters/hour worked fine, but when we hit 38 voters between 5 and 6 pm, there was a huge line and voters were getting grumpy. For next year's election, we would like at least three machines available, as the turnout will be substantially higher than this election's ~34 percent and lines could be extremely long quite quickly. It seemed to take 4-6 minutes per voter to complete the 4 page ballot, with the one visually impaired person taking at least 15 minutes. If we figure an average of 5 minutes per voter per machine, we can only reasonably accommodate 24 voters per hour with two machines. If the ballot is substantially longer than the one used this time, the average time per user per machine would increase.
If we figure 500 voters (65% turnout of about active registered 770 voters in the precinct) during the 2008 general election, we'll have about 72 people during the 5-6 rush. Even with one additional machine, we'd only be able to accommodate 36 people per hour, with six of the 13 hours having more than 36 voters. That's a lot of disenfranchised and/or frustrated voters.
So... does the county plan on acquiring a whole lot more machines? Or are you going to provide an alternative method? (It seems to me that back up paper ballots would be appropriate.)
As for the actual user interface of the ballot - there is a huge amount of research on how to create usable, user-friendly user interfaces. I'm guessing you don't have a lot of control over the display, that Diebold controls most of it, but you should be advocating for an interface that is easier to use than what currently exists.
Thanks much,
Heidi
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George Coxe's response 11/8/07:
Heidi
Your comments are welcomed and I thank you for that. I will look into adding another machine for all elections, giving Blossburg a total of 3, as I see the voter registration numbers has risen slightly. Having paper is not an option, unless all the machines go down, reason behind that, ADA HAVA compliance. The chart is pretty cool, I’ll have to look at it harder, when I get the chance. Thanks again.
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My thoughts...
1) The touch screen voting systems from Diebold are very susceptible to hacking and have documented security flaws.
2) The user interface is horrible and is a real deterrent for voters, particularly elderly folks who may not be familiar with any computer interface.
3) The touch screen systems are too expensive compared to various paper-based methods, such as "scantron" (fill in the bubble or connect the line and a machine can read the paper). Part of the problem in Blossburg is that we used to have at least four voting booths available, now we only have two machines. The machines take longer, are more intimidating, much less secure, and much less reliable.
4) Accessibility for the visually impaired is important and the electronic voting system does a rather nice job of reading the screen and allowing for alternative input (a number keypad rather than touching the screen). However, there are ways to provide voting privacy and independence within a scantron system - Connecticut uses such a system.
This comment is useful to read.
