Improving Voting System Event Logs

Abstract

Federal standards require that electronic voting machines log information about the voting system behavior to support post-election audits and investigations. Our study examines what additional voter interaction information should be collected to allow investigation of human factors issues of the voting systems used in an election, while at the same time preserving voter privacy. We have focused on simulating touch screen interface errors that have been hypothesized as the cause of problems in past elections, such as miscalibration and insensitivity. The preliminary data gathered indicates that event logs which record voter interaction information may allow investigators to detect the existence of interface problems in deployed voting systems. This information can be collected without compromising secret ballot rights. We believe that any voting system using a touch screen interface could benefit by logging these events.