Why Johnny Can’t Vote: How Usability Compromises Election Integrity Sponsored by the Psychology, Political Science, and Computer Science Departments Friday, March 29 in Chandler 102 12-1PM The U.S. Presidential election in 2000 brought issues of voting system usability to the public consciousness via the “butterfly ballot” and ubiquitous media coverage of hanging chads. This prompted federal legislation which led to widespread adoption of electronic voting systems. However, fundamental questions about voting system usability were not answered before this sweeping change: Just how usable were the technologies being replaced? How do new electronic systems compare to those systems? How do security concerns about electronic voting factor in? We now have data that help answer some of these questions but which raise serious concerns about the systems we use to participate in our democracy. Errors rates larger than the margin of victory in some races appear at multiple points in the voting … [Read more...]