Voting Technology : The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot Lecture

Yesterday, our team had the opportunity to attend a lecture given by Dr. Paul Herrnson, Director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship. Dr. Herrnson recently published a book entitled Voting Technology : The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot. His lecture was based on his research findings on the subject of how voters respond to voting equipment. With the voting fiasco that occurred in the 2000 Presidential election, as well as the Help America Vote Act in 2002, there is much to learn on this subject.

Although Dr. Herrnson is not a get-out-the-vote advocate, his research is very important to our team. One of the main findings in our focus group was that voting is not as easy as it could be. Students complained about everything from obtaining an absentee ballot to actual mishaps of voting machines. Not being able to vote accurately is not only frustrating, but it undermines the actual effort an individual makes to actually go and vote.

In his research Dr. Herrnson found that poorly designed voting methods lead to big problems. The worst methods included systems with less visible computerization, while touch screens outperformed all other systems. To improve accuracy, it is important to give people more control over the voting process and present less information at a time.

How can we use Dr. Herrnson's findings? Well perhaps our get-out-the-vote tactic will focus on educating the student population about the proper procedures of voting. One may think that college students are tech savvy and do not need to be taught how to operate a voting system, but who knows? This could be why students opt not to vote - its too complicated.

All in all, Dr. Herrnson's research did not focus on what we are focusing on. But his lecture proved beneficial because his research delves deeper into one of the reasons students said they do not vote - lack of ease.

-alka