In Election Voting, Do People Touch the Objective or Not?

Abstract

Election technologies have been constantly evolving since the first election in the United States of America. In 2008, during the early voting election one problem that occurred was vote switching in West Virginia and recently in Saline County, Kansas. Vote switching occurs when the voter’s selection is given to another candidate instead of the intentional candidate. Many voters believed that this problem occurred because of technical issues but another possibility is that the design of the interface was inherently flawed. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the extent to which the interface design affects the outcome of an election. Specifically, people were asked to touch an objective in order to determine the role that interface design plays in the results of an election. A small group of technical individuals that interact with various interfaces on a regular basis were used to test out the hypothesis. Findings show that majority of the individuals touched the objective but there was still a small percent that was unable to complete the mission. This exploratory look suggests that there is a strong possibility of an error occurring with the voting system’s interface that could cause voting switching and ultimately the election results.