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Using Crowdsourcing To Design More Accessible Elections
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. Election Assistance Commission is sponsoring an online, open innovation challenge to search for creative answers to the question: 'How might we design an accessible election experience for everyone?' The goal is to develop ideas for how to make elections more accessible to everyone, especially people with disabilities."
Finally, a positive news story.
What is much harder is to make it both easy to vote and make it difficult to cast a fraudulent vote. Preventing fraud is an important consideration as more and more elections in the US are decided by razor thin margins, well within the margin of being decided by fairly trivial fraud.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I might sympathize with the latest Republican frenzy for ID checks if they actually sought to make them constructively available, and to add some decent security features to them.
Instead we get states where people are told they have to provide all the gruntwork themselves, and the security is still as ineffective as ever.
Why not a national ID system? Why not any kind of biometric systems? Why nothing but a picture?
We don't need more accessibility. We need more transparency. Or, more specifically, companies can make all the cool electronic voting machines/procedures/whatever that they want to, as long as we the people have unfettered access to it to ensure that the system remains accurate.
"A government is a body of people usually -- notably -- ungoverned." -Shepherd Book
An online voting booth would easily create a substantial boost in the number of people voting and would limit out virtually no one (except those without internet or in rural areas, but frankly, absent door-to-door service, it is going to be extremely hard to include these people in elections. That, or at least a national and easy to use site/phone hotline for signing up for absentee voting.
Move voting to the weekend(for people who can't get away from work).
Make it last a full weekend from Friday at noon until Monday at noon(for people who can't get away from work).
Move voting to the spring(for people who have bad weather in early November).
Make it so anyone can vote at any voting station rather than requiring that people go to only the one(for convenience).
Make it so all schools and all government offices are voting stations(for convenience).
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera...
Why not a national ID system?
States Rights. This is a conglomeration of 50 individual states. There is no 'national election'.
Why not any kind of biometric systems?
Too prone to failure
Why nothing but a picture?
How else would you do it? What is your suggestion?
As long as we're only allowed to vote for people or parties and not on actual decisions, what's the point in making those elections more accessible?
There are already many different programs in place for this, from Absentee Ballots (by mail) , to free handicapped bus service for those still wanting to go to the polls. By some accounts even the dead can already vote.
It seems like this is redundant, as states and local government already reach out to their handicapped citizens. Government posturing seems to be the primary emphasis here, to get the last possible government dependent person to vote, regardless of cost, and woe be to anyone who stands in the way, or suggests that anyone who wants to vote already has the opportunity, and that there are those who simply don't want to vote.
Follow the link in TFA to the mission statement and notice this nugget:
Cognitive disabilities: intellectual, developmental, remembering, concentrating
If someone can't remember who they wanted to vote for, or is too mentally challenged to form and opinion why include them in this process at all? (especially when some states require a sound mind to vote).
More troubling was this paragraph:
While each country has its own election system, and we have only a limited ability to change that, we can focus on making elections more accessible, through new technologies, communications tools, and processes.
What? Excuse me? This sounds like the groundwork for more meddling in the business of other countries than improving anything in the US.
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Any attempt at making voting more accessible should not make the election process easier to tamper with.
For example, have a machine print a voted ballot, and the human-readable parts of that ballot are what are counted.
Imagine a virus that manipulated databases, but only took effect on election day. That would certainly effect systems where the votes are only stored as digital data.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Ballot stuffing (or even voting two or more times) is very rare.
So rare as to be a non-issue. Despite claims to the contrary.
Most attempts at "fixing" the "voter fraud" issue are really aimed at making it more difficult for people to vote. They have to jump through more hoops so they might not be able to afford it in time or money (or both). Meanwhile, the people with the extra time and money CAN jump through the hoops (after all, they determined what those hoops would be). So the only "legit" voters are the people who are already prosperous under the existing system.
So it is just a way to maintain the status quo.
Anyway, on to improving the system.
1. How about extending "election day" to more than a single day?
2. And how about including a national holiday in that period? Move Presidents Day so that it falls in the middle of "Voting Week". Or the end. Or the beginning. Or even on "Election Day" if you don't want to add more days. Yay! Holiday! Get out and VOTE!
Why not a national ID system? Why not any kind of biometric systems? Why nothing but a picture?
If the Republicans suggested this you would be the first one up in arms.
Think for just a minute before posting such nonsense. Someone puts your name on a secret list, and you can't board an airplane. Now you want to entrust the right to vote to these same people?
You, sir, are a dangerous man.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
1. In the long-time tradition of letting the dearly departed cast their ballot, it's time they make it official policy to "bring out your dead." Zombie votes have always been cast anyway - just legitimize the practice.
2. Furthering the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), people with ADHD and Aspergers should be allowed to better express themsleves by letting them "vote early, vote often". Keep pulling that lever as much as you need to!
3. Since the secrecy of the vote is an integral part of the election process, everyone will get a secret ballot, same as in Soviet Russia. "Do not open the ballot, citizen! It's called a SECRET ballot for a reason!"
4. To avoid discriminating against people who live on the west coast or other time zones, election results will be available nationwide 6 hours before the polls open, EDT. This will allow for more celebrations for the election of our dear leader.
5. Remember, it's not election fraud unless we say it is!
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
Why not a national ID system?
States Rights. This is a conglomeration of 50 individual states. There is no 'national election'.
The current SCOTUS would probably rule that elections to Federal offices (President, Congress) very obviously fall under the Interstate Commerce and/or the Necessary and Proper clauses of the constitution. Their reasoning would be bizarre and impenetrable, but their decision is final.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Each state can have a different voting methodology.
Don't limit yourself to approval voting.
Wikipedia has a whole list of different voting methodologies and how they'd affect the outcome of elections.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system
The Republicans are already trying for just that sort of control over the right to vote. At the State Level, where it can be exploited to disenfranchise people.
The fact that they are not arguing for doing it properly, but instead resentful of the mere suggestion that it needs to be done proactively (I've asked them, they say, no way, it would be too expensive!), tells me that they don't care about doing it right any way.
Like I said, I'd be inclined to support them if they were about making the effort sincere, but since they don't, clearly they're much like the Susan G. Komen foundation, seizing on an excuse to do what they want, not relying on an actual principle.
Runnoff voting, so we can vote for the candidates we want in order of importance, instead of feeling forced into voting for the "lesser" of two evils.
Using open-algorithm division of all voting districts, to greatly reduce the instance of gerrymandering.
After one has completed a prison sentence, they should not be barred from participating in democracy. Barring the vote to convicted felons is a travesty.
I would love something like Helios being used, the ability to vote at home would help millions reach the poll (While keeping poll sites using the same software), and tracking ones vote online in realtime is a fantastic concept. http://heliosvoting.org/
I want the ability to vote "no confidence" if need be.
I want limits on private financing of campaigns, and better open financing.
And I want the presidential filing fee be greatly reduced, every state allow for write-ins, the need of signatures removed. I think if we are in a fully digital system we are no longer trying to keep the ballot down to a simple sheet, limiting the available candidates this way leaves the option of running only to the super-rich. I don't care if there are a thousand bored college students on the ballot running for *bread and circus*, a proper democratic action should allow for it. So while we are a democratic republic, an increased amount of democracy towards the voting in of representatives allows for the people to really be heard.
State's Rights? The rallying cry of somebody who doesn't want something done...but the reality is, ID is a national, even international problem. It's clearly tied to interstate commerce and all sorts of other things that make a federal supremacy easy to justify.
And your complaints about too prone to failure apply to the photo ID systems, thank you, yet we rely on them when they're easily exploited and prone to failure, to the point where they're hardly of much use.
Think about how many tens/hundreds of millions was wasted on failtacular e-voting initiatives.
Imagine if all the States got together and spent that money once on an Open Source hardware/software package.
Even if they go over schedule and over budget, it'll only ever have to be done once.
And this time, don't farm out the job to politically connected corporations.
Instead, have the programming coordinated with some University's Computer Science Dept
and don't forget to have it all overseen by the guys/gals from BlackBox Voting.
I'm sure there are more than enough people who'd be happy to volunteer their testing skills throughout the design and coding cycle to ensure that the voting software comes out with minimal bugs and security holes.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Make election day a holiday for whatever jurisdiction (federal, state, county, etc) is on the ballot.
I thought the US was trying to make elections LESS accessible out of concerns of voter fraud. Voter ID stuff and all that?
I was telling outside a polling station. A car drew up. Someone got out of the car and went into the polling station.
The presiding officer came out and said to us tellers (representing the candidates (I forget whether this was a year when I was also the candidate)):
"There's a disabled lady in that car who would have considerable difficulty getting into the polling station. I have been asked to take her ballot paper out to the car for her to fill in. Do you have any objections?"
This suggestion was of course completely illegal. Naturally, however, I and the tellers for the other candidates said "no problem at all, go ahead" and that's what happened.
A victory for common sense over the boring details of the regulations. I had no idea, and neither did any of the other tellers, who the punter was going to vote for - that wasn't the point.
Because absentee ballots and the ability to have a personal assistant in the voting booth don't cover it?
How about a more open news system that isn't biased that way people can make a more informed decision (not that they would, just fewer excuses)?
Sorry but when you vote for members of Congress it is strictly by state. When you vote for President/Vice President you are voting for the Electors from your state. There are no Federal elections in the US, just state by state votes for Federal representatives. The only role the Federal Government plays is insuring fair elections across the 50 states and the territories.
The Republicans are already trying for just that sort of control over the right to vote. At the State Level, where it can be exploited to disenfranchise people.
Nonsense.
Please quote specific citations in specific states, or STFU.
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I don't see how it can be more accessible in California.
I have a harder time going to the DMV.
Step 1: sign up to vote. Make sure you check vote by mail.
Step 2: receive vote by mail ballot.
Step 3: research your issues/candidates
Step 4: Fill out your ballot
Step 5: return by mail.
Step 6: wait for next election. Return to step 2.
I wouldn't trust a fucking thing they say.
We could have people working at the polling stations who act as proxies to assist voters. The voter tells the worker who to vote for, then the worker places the vote.
Because we are short on money, they canidates should pay these workers, and decide how many and where they work.
I'm sure self-regulation will work fine for this, so faud won't be an issue.
Why do those who have not, get to vote on the distribution of wealth from those who have? If you're not a property owner, how much skin in the game do you really have? If you can't pass a basic civics test, how are you qualified to vote?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
We could start by just collecting ballots every day in November, not just the first Tuesday. Or we could move it to the first weekend if a month is too long to keep walkup ballots secret (though we do it with non-anonymous voting by mail).
We could make "Election Day" a mandatory Federal holiday, even if we keep it on Tuesday. Or we could make any voting receipt exchangeable for a holiday, either in November, or maybe within 6-12 months with 30 days advance notice and approval.
This will help people with access disadvantages by making shorter lines at the polls, and making more physically accessible poll locations available during a longer window to arrange to attend there.
--
make install -not war
So, forgo all the electronic gadgetry, do a simple mechanical trustworthy traceable process with paper and be done with it! Do it locally with many eyes watching over everything happening.
It's not hip enough and the results cannot be shown on live TV screens as instantly and the voting equipment companies won't do so much business - so what!
Apparently, some entities are using straight paper ballots for the sake of transparency and simplicity. Switzerland appears to be one of those. No complaints about lack of trustworthiness.
Everyone should get to vote as much as they want by texting a number, but each vote costs $1. Then the WHOLE WORLD could weigh in! And if Hu Jintao wants to get on the ballot and run, more power to him! Problem solved (You're welcome!)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The last federal election in Australia had something like 16,000 discrepancies, the problem in Aus, is that you aren't require to prove your identity to vote, you do need to identify yourself, but that only means stating your name and address, so that you get crossed off the list, but each electorate has many polling booths, each with many lists, so the same person can vote numerous times, and even though the electoral office will eventually see that, they can't prove whether it was that actual person who went to vote a number of times, pretty much unless they admit it.
Having worked at elections, i would argue that people should be required to prove who they are to vote, but i would be strongly against any electronic system for voting, as i think the old fashioned ballot paper does its job, and while open to some error, is somewhat harder to fabricate, the ballots are there, they all have different scribbles on them, and if any totals go pear shaped, the ballots can always be recounted, again, having worked at the elections, i can say with full confidence that Australian election are not rigged, even though 16,000 discrepancies, that's across 150 electorates all around 80,000 voters in size, and i do think something should be done to reduce the cases of electoral fraud, however, on the whole, voter sentiment ultimately wins as the fraud is only ever a problem in marginal seats, and both sides in the two party system do it, so they kind of cancel each other out. Close results usually mean that there's less than 1,000 votes between the two preferred candidates.
Auction off every seat publicly. Why use the big detour via PACs->campaign ads->voters??? It's inefficient and reduces transparency.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
I must say I am puzzled by the notion that elections for federal public office would fall under the umbrella of "Interstate Commerce" as if money changes hands for elec... Oh! I see.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
special interests
You need to drill down into the history behind the issue. Conservatives are easier to motivate to vote, and almost only vote Republican. Groups that are easy to discourage (young, black, poor) tend to overwhelmingly vote Democrat. High turn-out elections favour Democrats, low turn-out elections favour Republicans.
Hence the Republican powers-that-be tend to (quite rightly) see voter registration drives, "Rock The Vote", "Vote or Die", as a pro-Democrat mechanism. So they push back by making voting more difficult. Hell, I saw a conservative editorial recently describing voter-registration drives and anything that encourages voting as "anti-democratic".
Hence the push for voter-ID systems. And it polls well with non-Republicans, as an anti-fraud measure, making it easy to hide their real intent. (Along with less publicised anti Voter Registration Drive measures, like making it effectively illegal to hand out voter registration forms, etc.)
Here in Australia, we have mandatory voting (well, mandatory turning-up-and-getting-your-name-crossed-off, you can still leave your ballot blank). There's a $50 fine for non-voting, although it's apparently easy to get out of. And we have over 95% turnout at Federal and State elections. The left-wing party supports mandatory voting, the right-wing party opposes it. For exactly the same reasons, and with each using exactly the same poll-friendly lies to defend their positions.
This is all part of the long and nasty history of efforts to keep the "wrong" group from voting.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
I don't know how prevalent individual voter fraud is.... but I've always been a little skeptical of the claim that it's nearly non-existent, since our current election procedures are incapable of detecting it.
In other news, I've discovered that there's no such thing as poor people, because if I close my eyes real tight when riding through downtown I never see any poor people - so clearly there aren't any!
What could possibly be more accessible than voting online? There are public avenues of doing this (library's, internet cafe's)... Seriously. As for security, we already do some very sensitive transactions online, and I'm sure all the tallied data is going to end up on some networked computer somewhere anyways even now... How about you create a youtube-esque election site that covers everyones agendas? Where the size of your bank account doesn't matter, because you reach to just as many people as the next guy, who's poorer than you...
Away with congressman and representatives! I want to be able to represent myself! Just let me vote for elections and on major policies online...
Obviously this requires some more planning and thinking to actually make it work.
remember that the ever-popular-on-slashdot ron paul specifically wants the very opposite of "more accessible elections". the candidate who calls himself a "libertarian" has on more than one occasion publicly chastised the american voter as the source of our troubles. remember that before you consider supporting someone who wants "a government you can drown in a bathtub".
while our election system is far from perfect, there are some who very plainly wish to make it worse.
three comments and I am forever at terrible karma
Too many people overlook that there are politicians who are very clearly enemies of democracy.
Guess you haven't been paying attention to South Carolina's own admissions.
Insuring, eh? How much is Florida's Premium?
But seriously, the ID is a matter of interstate commerce, giving the amount of identity fraud in this country. The application for elections would be incidental, not determinative.
And?
The question is NOT whether the voter rolls were 100% accurate.
The question is whether people were voting multiple times.
Nice. Thanks for showing that.
No, no no no. There are federal ID's available when required for constitutionally mandatory things. Passport for entering the country, FFL, pilot's license, coast guard licenses, those things are inherently interstate, and the federal government's responsibility. State ID is a state problem and belongs there. There is nothing good, nothing at all good, about trying to establish a federal ID. Tell me how your drivers license relates to interstate commerce, unless you propose some sort of (god I sound like a right-wing jackass now) internet commerce license.
Oops. Brain fart. (I'm the AC of the comment you replied to preserving mods).
But I've never heard of enough voter fraud happening to affect any but the closest of elections (> 5 votes). Most if not all of the voter fraud I've heard of is not the kind that picture ID will solve because it involves registering to vote in a precinct that is not your place of residence or failing to re-register when you move. For instance MItt Romney remained registered at his sons address in Massachusetts when he was not living there. John Huntsman's registration remained at the governors mansion in Utah long after he was no longer governor and had bought a house in DC. Ann Coulter registered at the address of her agents office rather than her home in a different precinct. Yes, there is lots of identity fraud in this country but I've never heard about it being perpetrated for the purpose of voting. If you can show evidence of voter fraud that picture ID would solve I'd be more willing to listen but I just haven't heard about enough to be concerned about.
Well for one you could do away with gerrymandering that marginalizes poor people, or neo-Jim Crow Laws (see Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow" 2010), or bring back organizations like ACORN which helped to rally ethnic minorities and the economically disadvantaged (before being gutted by the GOP on verifiably baseless claims), or eliminate the electoral college, or pursue more direct-democracy solutions based on Switzerland's thousand-year-old system, or any number of other things. But no, let's waste our time rehashing buzzwords from 2006 so that rich white people can feel good about themselves. Thanks.
I just misread this title as "Using Crowdsourcing to Design More Accessible Electrons", and was briefly overcome by a sense of immense incredulity.
Then I re-read it.
Go Starship Troopers with it. Only Veterans can vote or hold office. Now you only have to deal with about ten percent of the population, everyone is pre-registered to vote (based on their military records), and voter fraud would drop to near zero (again their military records).
Lot's of time and money can be saved by all, and the minimum standard for douche baggery (of our politicans) would be set much higher than it is now.
Yet another way voting can be easily rigged.
Bye bye democracy! The law already belongs almost entirely to the highest bidder, with technology as easily subverted as electronic voting the people taking the money to make the laws will soon be able to choose themselves with little real input from voters.
Source: see Diebold voting machine rigging - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRE_voting_machine#Demonstrated_Laboratory_Attacks
I love to see technology advance, but only where it is needed. If people don't want to leave the house to vote in a paper ballot then why not visit people at home to collect their vote? Sure, it would be a pain to organize, but not significantly more so than any alternative. This gets more votes in from a larger percentage of the nation and does not rely on technology that can be undermined or directly subverted.
Nothing, and I do mean nothing, it better than a cross in a box next to the name of the person you choose to represent you. Why replace that when collecting it could be as easy as a door to door sales campaign?
The most prevalent US ID is a drivers license - if you don't have one, you probably are poor and left-leaning, so we don't want you voting. Just get a state ID, you say? The same folks who dreamed up Voter ID laws also made sure the process of getting a state ID requires a not insignificant amount of time and money to further suppress the working poor from exercising their voting rights. Only rich whites should vote; based on most of our history, what's more American than that?
In addition to crowdsourcing accessibility, what about taking suggestions for election mechanics themselves? Our winner-take-all elections effectively squish third party candidates -- a vote for anything but Dem/Rep is wasted, so why do it except in symbolic protest? Not so in ranked elections: http://www.economist.com/node/21533435. Or what about allowing voters to split, like, 10 "preference points" across candidates as they see fit?
GeekDad, TED speaker, Wipeout loser, author of Brain Trust
Answer: Get rid of the politicians.
The kind of voting scheme you advocate just lets people look at the issues, pick the candidates that most closely matches what they want, and then get on with their lives. That may seem like a good idea, but it isn't, because the compromise candidate is then determined mechanically and may turn out to be unexpected and a disaster (there is historical precedent from other democracies).
Voting is about making tough choices and analyzing the political situation, and that includes thinking about what choices other people make and how your choice interacts with theirs.
An election is essentially crowd sourcing. Stop reinventing the wheel with a new buzz word folks..
People just hate to vote in the end.
Then again, what do people like? As the saying goes: sex, love, and money--oh and include food too.
Yet another moderator is trying to ensure that reasonable arguments are never seen.
Support SETI@home
p>Why not a national ID system? Why not any kind of biometric systems? Why nothing but a picture?
A National ID system you say? you mean like REAL ID?
As for biometrics, what do you think a picture is?
Elections are of no use unless people vote as per their conscience
Casteism