How hard can it be to place a ballot into a ballot box?: usability of ballot boxes in tamper resistant voting systems
M. Grant Belton, Philip T. Kortum, Claudia Ziegler Acemyan · Journal of Usability Studies archive · 2015
End-to-end verifiable voting methods are an emerging type of voting system, and a number of new designs are being actively developed. Many of these systems try to mirror current paper voting methods and use a paper ballot that can be scanned and then placed into a ballot box. Previous research has shown that having separate scanner and ballot box components lead to failures, as many users fail to either scan or place their ballot in the box, both of which are required to cast a vote that will be counted. In our study, we examined the usability of two different ballot box configurations designed to eliminate these kinds of errors. Results showed that both configurations were equally usable, but that specific design aspects of the scanner itself significantly affected the ability of voters to cast their votes, with only 37.5% of the voters able to do so. Based on the results of this research, implications for usable ballot box design are discussed.