Tackling Technology, One Book at a Time
APRIL 2008
Tackling Technology, One Book at a Time
Voting technology, long the purview of heated debate among the political and advocacy communities, is the focus of two new academic, book-length studies. One, focusing on usability, was explored in a recent event hosted by the Election Reform Project, while the other highlights how the advantages of electronic voting can outweigh the drawbacks.
Featured Resources
Ansolabehere and Stewart III find that in presidential races the residual vote rate increases as one moves from paper ballots to optically scanned ballots, mechanical lever machines, DRE’s, and punch cards. Lever machines and punch cards perform poorly in gubernatorial and senatorial races
After briefly exploring the history of the manipulation of elections in the U.S., this article discusses the inevitablity of a certain level of error and lays out a set of approaches, drawn from engineering, to examine the issue of security.
This report, part of Kentucky's recent review of its certification of voting systems, highlights a number of changes that could be made to improve the process.
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission highlights key steps administrators should follow when implementing new voting systems. A more comphrensive guide will follow.
Research Projects
Election Law @ Moritz, run through Moritz College of Law at the Ohio State University, contains both explanation and commentary on a wealth of election reform issues from a legal perspective.
This project aims to evaluate the current state of reliability and uniformity of U.S. voting systems; to establish uniform attributes and quantitative guidelines for performance and reliability of voting systems; and to propose specific uniform guidelines and requirements for reliable voting systems
Electionline.org provides daily news updates on election reform issues, as well as deeper analysis of selected topics, including recent reports on voter registration, recount procedures, and the progress in implementing the Help America Vote Act since 2002.
As part of its broader research focus on elections, campaign ethics, campaign finance, and the legislative process, the Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland is engaged in research projects on voting technology and ballot design specifically.
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
www.aei.org
The Brookings Institution
www.brookings.edu
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