Assessing the Usability of the Straight-Party Voting Ballot Option for Paper,Punch Card, and Electronic Voting Systems

[摘要] The straight-party voting ballot option (SPVBO) is a voting provision available to asizable minority of United States voters-approximately 71 million voters across 16 U.S.states. In recent years, researchers have begun to doubt the efficacy of the SPVBO whilecurrent research on the usability of the SPVBO is largely anecdotal with little empiricalsupport. From a usability perspective, the SPVBO should be a means of increasing bothvoting efficiency and voting effectiveness via a reduction in the overall number of taskelements require to complete a ballot. An empirical mock election research experimentwas conducted to test the usability of the SPVBO using realistic voting equipment andprocedures. Results from this experiment suggest that using the SPVBO may have littleimpact on voting system efficiency or satisfaction and that, in certain circumstances,using the SPVBO may have profound negative effects on voting error rates.

[发布机构] Rice University

[效力级别] Political