Murdering The Innocent
Regardless of your stance on capital punishment, no human finds it morally reconcilable to murder the innocent. There is no implementable way our justice system can insure that an innocent man is not executed. We must say that nobody, not even the government, has the constitutional right to take the life of another. This must end.
The Times They Are A Changing
We are approaching the cusp of an epic moment in humanity. Our only option to surpass this moment is to defer our short term conflicts and start collaborating on our future. It’s time to get to work people.
Design A Better Ballot
The New York Times City Room blog in association with the AIGA hosted an open call for ballot designs this summer. For the first time in decades New Yorkers were heading to the polls with new voting machines and ballots. The challenge was to overcome the significant weaknesses of current and past voting systems and design a better ballot for New York. My submission, “A ‘Gerontechnological’ Approach,” and others can be found on City Room.
A ‘Gerontechnological’ Approach
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Problems:
Accessibility: Those with physical impairments and non-native English speakers can find the ballot inaccessible because they cannot fill in a small circle, see the text or read it in their native language.
Legibility: Current ballots take the “all-at-once” approach to visual composition. All races, candidates and languages are shown on one page which makes the critical information harder to decipher.
Flexibility: The current paper ballot is less flexible than electronic systems. Changing selections requires a new ballot and more time, adding undue time pressure to your vote and increasing the likelihood of errors.
Data Credibility: Many voting systems do not maintain both paper ballots and databases. This can easily result in improper records and little ability to cross-verify ballots with election totals, leaving a hole where some votes are overcounted or undercounted.
Intervention:
I decided to address these problems from a gerontechnological approach. That is, by designing for the limitations and capabilities of older adults, the result will be the most accessible ballot for all. (Bouma 2) To do this, I decided to design a ballot for electronic voting machines because testing shows that adults make fewer errors on these systems compared with paper ballots. Pen devices (stylus) cause more errors and time consumption, so I opted for a touch interface. (Charness 9) This minimizes the motor skills required to complete the ballot. If you can tap the screen, you can vote.
Electronic voting machines also increase accessibility by allowing the voter to change the language or text size and receive audio assistance at any stage of the ballot. Another benefit of electronic systems is that each race can be shown on a separate page, which decreases the likelihood for errors and emphasizes the relevant information for each race. (Ibid. 10)
The touch interface also allows for quick and easy changes in selection. Stepping out from the booth, asking for a new ballot, then refilling all your previous selections, just to change one answer, adds unnecessary pressure to complete the ballot faster as the line behind you grows longer. A touch system allows the voter to simply tap another choice and the selection is changed. It also adds a confirmation step to each page and a summary of your choices before submission. This confirmation and review assures that the voter is aware of any mistake made along the way and decreased the amount of unintentional selections. (Ibid. 7)
Finally, it is critical to inextricably tie the ballot with the person voting. This helps prevent voter fraud by those who vote both absentee and in person and those who claim the identity of the dead to vote numerous times. Using a fingerprint scanner (seen at nearly all D.M.V. offices), poll workers can assure that each person votes once and only once. This fingerprint data is only compared with other ballots for the current election to ensure no double votes were made. They should then be destroyed after the election is complete and never shared with any other government office or agency much like personal census data. The voter also signs a printed out ballot to verify the information one last time. The paper ballots are sealed as an alternate back-up database, in case a recount is needed and the electronic data has been compromised.
Sources:
Bouma, H. & J. A. M. Graafmans (Eds.), Gerontechnology. Amsterdam: IOS Press, 1992. Print.
Charness, N. & T. Jastrezembski. “What Older Adults Can Teach Us About Designing Better Ballots.” Ergonomics In Design. 2007. Print.
