Rice Univesrity Logo
    • FAQ
    • Deposit your work
    • Login
    View Item 
    •   Rice Scholarship Home
    • Rice University Graduate Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • Rice University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Rice Scholarship Home
    • Rice University Graduate Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • Rice University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Effects of Multiple Races and Header Highlighting on Undervotes in the 2006 Sarasota General Election: A Usability Study and Cognitive Modeling Assessment

    Thumbnail
    Name:
    GreeneK.pdf
    Size:
    3.368Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    View/Open
    Author
    Greene, Kristen K.
    Date
    2011
    Advisor
    Byrne, Michael D.
    Degree
    Doctor of Philosophy
    Abstract
    Large-scale voting usability problems have changed the outcomes of several recent elections. The 2006 election in Sarasota County, Florida was one such incident, where the number of votes lost was nearly 50 times greater than the margin of victory for the US Representative race. Multiple hypotheses were proposed to explain this incident, with prevailing theories focused on malicious software, touchscreen miscalibration or poor ballot design, Study I aimed to empirically determine whether Sarasota voters unintentionally skipped the critical US Representative race due to poor ballot design. The Sarasota ballot was replicated initially, then header highlighting and number of races presented on the first screen were manipulated. While the presentation of multiple races had a significant effect on undervotes in the US Representative race, header highlighting did not. Nearly 20% of all voters (27 of 137) skipped the race their first time on that screen, an even greater undervote rate than that originally seen in Sarasota. In conjunction with other research, Study I results strongly suggests that the 2006 Sarasota election was almost certainly a human factors problem. A cognitive model of human voters was developed based on Study I data. Model predictions were then compared with behavioral data from Study 2, in which participants voted on a replica of the Charlotte County, Florida 2006 ballot.
    Keyword
    Social sciences; Psychology; Sarasota; Human factors; Voting; More... 2006 Sarasota General Election; Florida; Ballot design; Undervotes; Usability study; Header highlighting; Behavioral psychology; Political science; Cognitive psychology Less...
    Citation
    Greene, Kristen K.. "Effects of Multiple Races and Header Highlighting on Undervotes in the 2006 Sarasota General Election: A Usability Study and Cognitive Modeling Assessment." (2011) Diss., Rice University. https://hdl.handle.net/1911/70254.
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Collections
    • Rice University Electronic Theses and Dissertations [13127]

    Home | FAQ | Contact Us | Privacy Notice
    Managed by the Digital Scholarship Services at Fondren Library, Rice University
    Physical Address: 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005
    Mailing Address: MS-44, P.O.BOX 1892, Houston, Texas 77251-1892
    Site Map

     

    Searching scope

    Browse

    Entire ArchiveCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsTypeThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsType

    My Account

    Login

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Home | FAQ | Contact Us | Privacy Notice
    Managed by the Digital Scholarship Services at Fondren Library, Rice University
    Physical Address: 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005
    Mailing Address: MS-44, P.O.BOX 1892, Houston, Texas 77251-1892
    Site Map