Electioneering : Board of Elections Website Analysis | Idaho

Ok. This rocks. Look what Idaho has posted on their site since they are “Determined to Vote”:

http://www.idahovotes.gov/Media/Determined_to_Vote_animation.wmv

Electioneering : Board of Elections Website Analysis | California

• Access to a great deal of information from the first page.
• More organized (if unimaginative) layout of information
• 
• Voter REGISTRATION, Voter INFORMATION, and VOTING SYSTEMS are three separate categories. Should these overlap more?

Electioneering : Board of Elections Website Analysis | Oklahoma

• This website is absolutely ridiculous. It looks as if it were a high school web project
• At least you know which state you’re looking at, though!
• There IS NO NAVIGATION — simply a list of links down the page that go either to other completely amateur webpages or pdfs.
• 

Electioneering : Board of Elections Website Analysis | Georgia

• Again, rather difficult to know what state one is looking at.
• Very simplified format. Not too many choices. Not cluttered
• Actually — looking at the WRONG SITE. My search led me to the site where information about the board is provided rather than about elections
• Real Georgia Elections site is much easier to identify
• Organized arrangement of information even if a little bland.
• 

Electioneering : Board of Elections Website NEEDS (in progress)

Plan of Attack: 

• Visit individual state sites
• See what is currently in play. What works, What doesn’t work, What looks horrible, What is understandable, What questions are they answering, etc.
• Figure out the specific NEED that can be filled and is within a reasonable scope.

Upon visiting the site, voters need to understand immediately:

1. What U.S. State this is for (or what county/municipality).
2. That this is the Official State site where voters can find answers on HOW TO VOTE.
3. That a site of the Secretary of State is the same thing often times as the Board of Elections site

Websites need to have specific USERS in mind: information for Voters, Media (state regulation news releases), & potential Candidates.

Websites have the OPPORTUNITY to utilize imagery to help outline and explain the voting process. This needs to be taken advantage.

Should the How to Vote directions be available in a “narrative” format so that one can click through the entire process and feel that they’ve covered all of the bases?

These websites have a tendency to neglect the actual process of voting. Rarely have I come across information about the type of ballot or the experience a voter should expect when going to the polling location. There is a great deal of answering questions, but no walk-thru of the process.

These sites should have an organized heirarchy rather than simply showing all information and questions on the first page. Many sites have too much on the first page and many sites have too little. Also, once a voter chooses to see a certain part of the process they should be able to move easily through other related topics.

Separate elements:

• Information Architecture
• Interface Design
• How To Vote Walkthru/Narrative

Side Note: If Poll Workers are needed why do these sites not have more of a marketing presence for this need on the site? Should working

Electioneering : Board of Elections Website Analysis | Wisconsin

Wisconsin

• No ability to tell what site you are on except in the URL
• What the hell is “Government Accountability Board: Elections Division”?
• I searched at least 4 times to make sure that this is the government site where you can find voting information
• The color palette and layout/fonts are atrocious.
• Navigation is on the left, but is very confusing in its language and organization

Electioneering : State Board of Elections Website Visuals

Electioneering : State Board of Elections Websites

Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia (about Board)  Georgia (about Elections)
Hawaii
Idaho

Electioneering: Project Proposal

Election Training Module

The American election process currently consists of countless different methods, and, at this point, it does not appear to be something that will change in the near future.  One of the downfalls of this inconsistency is that each authority needs to create materials unique to their own process.  I propose to develop a training module for use by election officials that prompts them to explain all of the steps of their area’s specific process as an on-line voter resource.

Currently, each state or even county have their own individual resources.  I would characterize the majority as disjointed and difficult to follow.  At times, the elections board even re-routes back to the website of the voting manufacturer.  All of the information and details should be able to be organized into an understandable flow.  Although each state or county is different, the majority have many of the same questions to answer.

The users of this module would be the elections officials themselves.  There are many questions that need to be answered when designing a training module such as layout, font, and interface, so this module would liberate the officials from having to make these individual decisions and allow them to focus on explaining their process fully and comprehensively.

The solution I propose would consist of directions accompanying an interactive program (most likely flash-based) that can be edited to each Board of Elections’ specifications.