Voter-centered design: Toward a voter decision support system

ABSTRACT

Electronic voting support systems should not focus only on ballot casting and recording. Instead, a user-centered perspective should be adopted for the design of a system that supports information gathering, organizing and sharing, deliberation, decision making, and voting. Relevant social science literature on political decision making and voting is used to develop requirements. A design concept is presented that supports extended information browsing using combined filtering from ballot materials and voter profiles. The system supports information sharing and participation in electronic dialogues. Voters may interweave information browsing, annotation, contextualized discussion, and ballot markup over extended time periods.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  J. Computer Applications
  J.4 SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces

  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.1 Public Policy Issues
      K.4.2 Social Issues

Keywords:
Electronic voting, digital government, social filtering, voter support system