I wrote Fri, 12 Oct 2001 09:31:19 +1000 (was: "re: [LINK] Request Change To
Workers Compensation Act for E-commerce"):
>... The ACT is having a local election on 20 October
><http://www.elections.act.gov.au/#new>, a few weeks before the federal
>election... This is the first use of a locally developed electronic voting
>system <http://www.elections.act.gov.au/Elecvote.html>.
As I would be away on election day I used the electronic system for a
pre-poll vote. A description of the process may be of interest to Linkers.
The system was designed by some of my colleagues at the ANU, but I wasn't
involved in development and was using it as an ordinary, but computer
literate, voter.
The pilot system is only available at some poling stations (it is not
designed for remote use over the Internet). The voter identifies themselves
to a poling official in the usual way. Instead of being handed a ballot
paper, I was given a coloured card with a bar code on it and asked to
select an electronic polling booth.
The electronic polling booths are modified versions of the usual ones: a
cardboard box forming a desk, with a cardboard privacy screen around three
sides. The box has a hole cut in the top (a rough job apparently done with
a knife), through which a computer screen is visible. There is a numeric
keypad and a bar code scanner on the desktop. The keypad has cursor arrows
and an enter key (all other keys are blanked out).
The voter scans the card they were handed through the bar code reader to
begin voting. The polling official warned there had been some problems with
the scanners, but I found ignoring their advice and smoothly swiping the
card worked well. The voter can select instructions in multiple languages,
but I used the default English. A facsimile of the paper ballot paper
appears on the screen (with text a bit smaller than is comfortably readable).
The keypad is used to select candidates in order of preference. In my case
this required selecting seven candidates (the ACT having an electoral
system with multi-member electorates). The cursor keys are used to navigate
to a candidate on the screen and then the enter key is pressed to select
them as the next preference. The selections are automatically numbered
starting from one. I had some difficulty jumping between political parties;
the ballot paper has candidates in columns by party and the system wouldn't
let me easily move sideways from party to party (having to move up and out
of one column and then down into the next).
With seven candidates selected, I indicated I was finished and was asked to
swipe the bar code again to confirm my choices. The polling official seemed
surprised that I had finished so quickly. The last step in the process is
to place the bar coded card in the ballot box (where paper ballots also
go). The votes are not recorded on the card, but it is presumably counted
to cross check the number of electronic votes.
Clearly a lot of thought has gone into the system design and I found little
to fault. It is a reasonable adaption of the paper ballot to an electronic
system. In comparison last week I used an automated library book borrowing
system, which was a lot more difficult to operate. That was a production
(not pilot) system which also uses a bar coded card. The library system was
much less user friendly and I was unable to work it successfully, even with
help from a librarian.
There were a few areas in which the electronic voting system could be improved:
* TEXT SIZE: The list of candidates on screen was too small to be read
comfortably. This was presumably because of the need to retain the same
format as the paper ballot and have all names on screen at once. Some way
to provide bigger text is needed.
* BOOTH DESIGN: There was the smell of overheating electronics coming from
the booth. It would appear that not enough thought had been given to
cooling the computer equipment inside. This could be dangerous, as the
equipment is housed in a flammable cardboard box and is unlikely to conform
with safety standards. This could be worse at non-air conditioned polling
booths. A few degrees of tilt in the desktop might have helped the
ventilation (as well as the ergonomics), while retaining the appearance and
privacy of a conventional booth. It should be reasonably simple for a
company such as Datatrax <http://www.datatrax.com.au/>, which has
experience in designing electronic kiosk cases to produce a better booth:
http://www.uk.emb.gov.au/CURRENT_AFFAIRS/australia/kiosk_launch.htm
* SELECTIONS: The only way to select candidates was starting from the most
preferred to the least. This is the opposite of the process which I
actually used. What I did was get the list of candidates from the electoral
commission web site <http://www.elections.act.gov.au/Cand2001.html#M> and
deleted the ones I didn't like, until I had the number of positions
available. I then printed this list, took it to the polling booth and
transcribed the result to the electronic system.
Perhaps the question which first needs to be asked is if an electronic
voting system is needed at all. Electors could be simply sent a paper
ballot by post and asked to mail it back within a couple of weeks. Some
sort of optical system might be used to help tally the results, but by
removing the need for everything to be done on one day even a manual system
may be more efficient.
Tom Worthington FACS tom.worthington@tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd ABN: 17 088 714 309
http://www.tomw.net.au PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617
Visiting Fellow, Computer Science, Australian National University
Publications Director & Past President, Australian Computer Society
--------------------------------------------------------------------
US Attacks: http://abc.net.au/public/articles/worthington_280901.htm
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.1 : Wed Oct 31 2001 - 03:10:02 EST