Re: Touchscreens for Voting Machines

From: Ron Crane <voting_at_lastland_dot_net> Date: Fri Nov 03 2006 - 17:53:08 CST · This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Thu Nov 30 2006 - 23:17:19 CST

On 11/3/06, Ron Crane <voting@lastland.net> wrote:

 Douglas W. Jones wrote:
 On Nov 2, 2006, at 1:16 PM, Arthur Keller wrote:

 1. All touchscreen voting machines should allow recalibration in the
middle of a ballot session. This way, the voter can complete the
process correctly.

 I'd hate for this to involve the pollworker coming anywhere near the
voting booth.

So, what we need is a recalibration operation that is trivial for the
voter. One way to do this is to routinely have displays that call for
the voter to touch corners of the display (put the next button on the
lower left corner, the back button on the upper right, for example), and
take pokes at those buttons as calibration hints.

 I'd hate for many voters accidentally to invoke this mode, or to be tricked
into invoking it -- or for someone to program the machines automatically to
invoke it under certain conditions.

 Many changes intended to "fix" touchscreens introduce further security
holes.

It would seem, if each touchscreen makes each voter scroll through
some directions at the beginning, that there might be automatic
calibration that could be done without even exposing the voter to
anything... obviously, I haven't thought this through... but imagine
developing a method where the touchscreen automatically accommodated
the voter's touch-style via some process that was invisible to them.
And then, it could also invoke when someone hit the "help" button.  It
would have to be done carefully so as not to cause confusion, but it
seems it could be done well. Would make a great technical contribution
and paper. (unless it already exists) -Joe