Voters with vision disabilities push for e-Voting right away

A group of voters with visually disabilities in Switzerland have been pressing the government to act swiftly in making e-voting available to them. Lamenting how the lack of digital accessibility excludes hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities, the Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (SBV) said that the immediate implementation of e-voting is just the solution to make voting accessible for voters with sight challenges.

“One of the most objectionable deficits is the lack of accessibility for blind people and people with visual impairments in terms of exercising their right to vote and to be elected, as well as the protection of their voting secrecy,” said Roland Studer, SBV president.

He urged politicians and elections authorities to seize the opportunity to remedy these issues before the 2023 parliamentary elections. “The 2023 parliamentary elections must be the last elections that are not barrier-free,” he declared.

To backstop the group’s demands, Studer cited the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by Switzerland in 2014, and the 2004 Disability Equality Act, which both underscore government’s duty to provide accessibility to handicapped people. Studer also emphasized the importance of extending accessibility to signature collections, advocating for electronic options. 

Voters with visual disabilities outside Switzerland face similar challenges. In the US, studies have shown that people with disabilities are less likely to vote than people without disabilities. This is likely due to several factors, including accessibility challenges, lack of transportation, and lack of information about the voting process.

Traditional voting modalities such as in-person voting and mail-in voting, can pose difficulties for people with certain disabilities. Sight-challenged voters may have difficulty reading the ballots or marking their choices while people with mobility and motor disabilities may find getting to precincts and physically filling out ballots nearly impossible tasks.

E-voting is well-poised to address these accessibility challenges. Electronic ballots can offer large print, high-contrast text, and audio output to get around sight impairment. Internet voting allows people with mobility disabilities to cast their ballots from anywhere.

Comparative Analysis of Different Voting Systems

In our previous post (Basic criteria for choosing voting technology) we covered the five basic principles to consider when choosing a voting system. We will now analyze Manual Voting (MV), Optical Scanners (OS), and Direct-Recording Electronic Voting Machines (DRE), according to the first two principles described before: Accessibility and Security.

Accessibility 

The strongest supporters of MV (manual voting and manual counting) proclaim accessibility as one of its most alluring advantages. For the average voter, manual voting is simple and intuitive. It is actually a familiar system that most of us have used in the past to either elect a high school student council member, a graduation song, a advisory board member, etc. 

In theory, OS (manual voting but automated tallying) are also fairly easy to use. The voter marks his/her selection to later feed the ballot into the machine. However, when the election requires different ballots for many posts to be elected, this simplicity fades away. Furthermore, reading errors often reach a problematic 5-15% on Election Day. In this sense, experience demonstrates that OS can be frustrating for the voter, and also for operators and electoral authorities, as they will be held responsible for a considerable number of null votes. 

With the new technological developments, such as touch screens and voice sensitive devices, voting with a DRE system (electronic voting and automated tallying) has evolved to become user friendly. Modern voting machines simplify interaction by providing voters with feedback messages, visual or auditory help, and a confirmation of their choice in any preferred language. It is important to mention that this is the only voting method that allows correcting a wrongly marked selection. 

In recent years, an urge to grant access to a hassle-free voting experience to individuals with special needs has prompted electoral authorities to set new guidelines for voting systems. For instance, the federal law Help America Vote Act (HAVA), established in 2002 new conditions to give citizens with disabilities, including the blind and visually impaired, equal opportunities to participate in elections. 

Electoral authorities have had a difficult time trying to cope with these new standards while complying with universal mandates such as secrecy. For example, assisting an impaired individual can compromise the secrecy of the vote and independence of the voter. MV and OS systems offer little options to improve the voting experience of these citizens. Through the use of touch screens, friendly interfaces, visual and auditory assistance, DRE machines developers have taken ease of use to a whole new level. Their more customizable interface has allowed them to gain an edge over the other technologies in this regard. 

Security 

Many of the traditional problems faced in manual elections revolve around security issues. The high levels of human intervention necessary in sensitive areas, such as tallying and transmission of results, and the always latent incentive to alter results, are the root of unintended and malicious errors. Pre marking ballots, or ballot stuffing (the illegal act of one person submitting more ballots than allowed) are some of the usual problems encountered with manual voting. 

In terms of Security, Optical Scanners have had an advantage over MV as they diminish human interaction by substituting human counting and the transmission of results. However, the process of transmitting results is usually made through methods that do not guarantee 100% the safety of the data. Moreover, the typical irregularities often found with paper ballots are present with this technology. 

DRE voting system providers have in Security one of the most compelling selling attributes. By minimizing human interaction with electoral material, increasing levels of auditability, and recording, processing and transmitting the information through safe protocols, a well designed DRE machine impedes any alteration of the voter’s intent. 

An advanced DRE system provides a paper trail for each vote casted, thus creating a double record (physical and electronic) which enhances the transparency of the process. Some advanced Optical Scanners also offer this redundancy of records.

Basic criteria for choosing voting technology

Throughout the history of elections, a plethora of technologies have been used to register the will of voters. Pencil and paper, lever machines, punch cards, optical scanners, touch screen voting machines, internet voting, are some of the alternatives electoral authorities have at their disposal to identify the people's chosen representatives and to tally their expressed preferences.

With all these options in hand, and the single most important act of democracy at stake, the process of selecting the appropriate alternative to implement becomes crucial.

Electoral authorities need to consider the following five basic principles in order to make a wise and well-informed decision:

1. Accessibility: The voting process should enfranchise all eligible voters and be operated and maintained without the assistance of any specialist. It must be easy to use, and allow people with special needs or disabilities exercise their right to vote.

A voting system must also comply with the accessibility requirements of authorities and operators. The whole voting procedure should be designed as to allow any citizen, once given a minimal training, to operate it and to guide voters.

2. Security: A reliable voting system cannot allow any vote tampering. The different features comprising it should constitute a bulletproof architecture guaranteeing that the voter’s choice remains unchanged. It has to be resistant to malicious or unintentional errors.

Also, a secure system must guarantee total secrecy. A secret ballot is essential to ensure voter autonomy and also avoid vote buying. 

3. Transparency: A voting technology will be transparent as long as it is understandable, verifiable, and accountable to the electorate. Its openness to audits, before, during and after the election will greatly enhance the perceived transparency of the system. 

If citizens are to abide by election outcomes and the laws created by an elected government, they must believe that the voting system reflects their preferences. 

4. Accuracy: Every vote must be counted equally. That is a universal mandate of any modern constitution. An accurate technology should truthfully capture, record and count the voter’s intent.

5. Cost-efficiency: The financial aspect of the different voting technologies must be carefully reviewed as their nature is quite dissimilar. A thorough cost analysis should include not only the initial investment, but also, other associated expenses such as: labor, transportation, guarding, and storage. In order to grasp an all-encompassing view of the economic implications of using each technology, the analysis must include several elections cycles.

The principles mentioned above constitute the basic criteria to start the challenging process of choosing the most appropriate technology for the cornerstone of any modern democracy, elections. 

Disabled voters love E-Voting

E-voting machines mean greater access, independence, and privacy for millions of disabled voters. Some of them have described the experience of using next generation voting machines as a “new freedom” and cherish the “privilege to have that right to privacy for the first time.”