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Jo,
I'd design an electronic voting system very much like
the design of on-line shopping-baskets.
You make all your choices by "X"ing boxes in
the touchscreen form. The system detects "errors"
and asks "This combination will spoil your ballot...
continue with spoiled ballot, or select just one
option in this section?"
When you'd poked all the holes you liked (virtually),
you'd press a "Next" button.
The system would present a summary of who you'd
voted for in all categories.
"These were your choices. Is this correct?
Go back and revise some choices?
These are my choices. Submit ballot as-is."
"Thank you for voting. Your vote has been tallied.
Get out of the booth, now. Please take your McDonald's
slushy cup with you."
The prompts and messages could be provided audibly for
the hard-of-seeing and illiterate.
Or something like that.
Of course, I would also include the peaceful-anarchist
option of explicitly registering a vote for "None of the
above", but *some* might consider that not germain to the
usability issue. :-)
GUI design. Don't technical writers do that sort of thing?
Aren't there some in Florida? Are any of you under-employed?
Looks like there's a job op to found in here.
(DISCLAIMER: Eric, I'm not advertising it... really!!!)
:-)
I'm Canadian. I think we still do it with paper ballots and
a pencil. I'm not sure. I'm no longer able to suspend
morality in order to cast a vote, so I'm out-of-date on
the technicalities.
Cheers,
/kevin
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jo Francis Byrd [mailto:jbyrd -at- byrdwrites -dot- com]
> What this Palm Beach ballot debacle emphasizes is the need to
> bring the
> balloting process into the 21st century, stop using those
> prone-to-error punch
> cards, and computerize it. The people who voted early here in
> Texas used some
> sort of computer touch-screen (which I can't properly
> describe since I didn't
> vote early).
[snip]
Kevin McLauchlan
Techy Writer, Chrysalis-ITS, Inc.
"Oh Lord, if you imaginary friends really existed,
I would pray for the day when "None of the Above"
was elected by a landslide.
But you don't, so I'll stop talking to myself, now."
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