UK Evoting: Design, usability and accessibility

These pages form an archive of material related to evoting, and have not been updated in some time. I may return to them one day, if and when the British government decides to pursue evoting again.

Implementation of Electronic Voting in the UK: Technical Options Report
By Ben Fairweather and Simon Rogerson of De Montfort University
Commissioned by the ODPM, this report has some coverage of usability and accessibility.

Electoral Commisson: Review of ballot paper design comsultation paper (PDF, 515KB)
and
Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility response, from Ben Fairweather at De Montfort University, to the consultation paper (2003)
and
Electoral Commission: Ballot Paper Design – Report and Recommendations
Includes some consideration of electronic voting.

Ballot papers will continue to be used as part of electronic vote counting systems, such as that recently introduced in the London area.

Democracy Needs Good Design by Louise Ferguson, published by Open Democracy (19 October 2004) addresses usability and user-centred design.

Standards and Guidelines – Disability Access Standards for the Electoral Modernisation Pilot Projects: Access Standards for e-voting and e-counting technology (ODPM)
Version 1, November 2002 (pdf)

The Polls Apart reports commissioned from SCOPE by the UK Electoral Commission, assess the accessibility of systems used in the UK electoral pilots, and comment on usability in passing:

Polls Apart 2001 – Campaigning for Accessible Democracy – accessibility of the 2001 general election
Polls Apart 2002 – A Future for Accessible Democracy – all voting channel pilots (electronic and all-postal)
Polls Apart 2003 – Developing Inclusive e-Democracy – all voting channel pilots (electronic and all-postal)
Polls Apart 2004 – An evaluation of the accessability of the 2004 European Parliamentary and local elections all-postal pilots

Polls apart Polling Station Checklist
A document for Electoral Administrators/Return Officers who want to ensure polling stations are accessible to disabled voters produced by SCOPE. (Word document)

The X Factor
By Louise Ferguson
Published by the Design Council in its Touching the State final report. (5.5MB, pdf)
This article addresses usability of both old and new technologies in voting, and the need for human-centred design approaches.

Democracy Needs Good Design
by Louise Ferguson, published by Open Democracy (19 October 2004) Addresses usability and user-centred design.

Evoting: Designing for people
Presentation for the IPPR/NMK seminar Evoting: Policy and Practice, November 2004 (PowerPoint)