Anywhere Ballot
What if anyone could vote on any device?
What if, rather than having separate voting systems for people who did and didn’t have disabilities, voters could vote on a device they already had and knew and had customized and personalized.
The presentation below shows the iterations of the design during the initial research project, but the interface and interaction concepts in the Anywhere Ballot have been used in voting system, making it easier for everyone, especially people with disabilities, to vote.
Resources
The Anywhere Ballot interface is available under a Creative Commons license.
- Anywhere Ballot Design Principles (PDF) and accessible text version
- Anywhere Ballot design pattern library (updated April 2015)
- WordPress theme files for the prototype (900Kb zip file)
Papers
- Any device, anywhere, any time: A responsive, accessible ballot design by Dana Chisnell, Drew Davies, and Kathryn Summers – ITIF-AVTI Working Paper #007
- Making Voting Accessible: Designing Digital Ballot Marking for People with Low Literacy and Mild Cognitive Disabilities by Kathryn Summers, University of Baltimore; Dana Chisnell, Center for Civic Design; Drew Davies, Oxide Design Co.; Noel Alton and Megan Mckeever, University of Baltimore. USENIX Journal of Election Technology and Systems (EVT 2014)
- Any device, anywhere, anytime: A bibliography on voting, accessibility and mobile
Blog posts
- Testifying to the Presidential Commission on Election Administration – Drew Davies on anyone voting anywhere, any time, on any device (November 2013)
- Helping voters who have extraordinary abilities – Dana Chisnell at an Election Assistance Commission round table (May 2013)
- Rapid, responsive, radical: The Anywhere Ballot is born (February 2013)
- This video from the Anywhere Ballot designer, Drew Davies, tells the story of this research project and how it could be used. 7:11 minutes (March 2013)
About the project
The Anywhere Ballot started as a research grant for the ITIF Accessible Voting Technology Initiative, funded by the Election Assistance Commission. The lead researchers were Dana Chisnell, Drew Davies, and Kathryn Summers, worked with students at the University of Baltimore Usability Lab. This work focused on prototyping an accessible, responsive, Web standards-compliant front end for ballot marking that would be accessible to voters with low literacy (a previously ignored voter audience) or who had mild cognitive disabilities.
In November 2012 and January 2013, the team conducted rapid iterative testing starting with a paper prototype and then a working digital version. Most of the participants in the testing had a reading, cognitive, or other intellectual disabilities. In these two rounds, the ballot design was iterated, changing the layout from horizontal to vertical, testing different instructions, and refining the visual design, until participants succeeded in marking their ballot.
In January 2015, the team added screens that show options for voter preferences to start the audio ballot or other accessibility hardware, select a language, and set the text size and contrast. The text settings are used throughout the ballot and can be changed from the settings button.
The ideas and interactions of the Anywhere Ballot have been used in several voting systems
- The ClearBallot completed the prototype interface for their ClearAccess ballot marking device
- The Los Angeles County Voting System for All People was introduced for all in-person voting in 2020 with an interface inspired Anywhere Ballot
- An updated interface Anywhere Ballot design was included used for the ElectionGuard reference implementation Ballot Marking Device, shown at the Aspen Security Conference in 2019.
- VotingWorks, which programmed the ElectionGuard interface, adapted it for their own voting system