User Observation

Joan (Town Clerk in Hudson, MA):

Joan presides over seven precincts in Hudson, MA and was in charge of ~10,000 votes this past presidential election. With their current system, she receives large tally sheets and manually adds up the total. She receives totals from various wardens across the county and is in charge of verifying these totals and determining the final numbers. She wants the process to be as fast as possible, but doesn't want to manage the results of the elections directly. 

Dawn (Assistant Town Clerk in Hudson, MA):

Dawn counted votes in the past election. She worked with someone else to read and record the results of the election, in batches of 50 votes. Some counters record the results of an entire ballot at once, while others record the results of an entire race at once. She added tally marks to the sheet as the person she worked with read the results of the ballot. She wants to be able to record the votes as quickly as possible, but still be accurate. On the current sheets, the running totals are easy to see and she wants to be able to easily add up the results. 

User Classes

Most of the users are older and retired. Because elections take place during the work day, most people available to count ballots are retired.

Ballot Counters:

The ballot counters divide votes into sets of 50 and then pair off in two. One person reads the results from the ballot while the other records on the tally sheet.

Wardens:

The wardens aggregate the votes from the ballot counters.

Needs & Goals

Ballot Counters: 

• Because ballot counters have a cap on the number of hours they can work, they want to get the votes counted as quickly as possible. They would like to record votes both by race and by ballot. As a result, they need an efficient system which supports this functionality.
• This is a task for which accuracy and reliability are very important. As a result, the users aim to have a perfectly accurate ballot counting. They need a system which allows them to easily correct mistakes.
• Elections have very important results, so the users would like to clearly view running totals.
• Many of the users are new to this job and don't have much time to learn it. Hence they need a system which is easy to learn and repeat.
• Elections have varying numbers of candidates. Users want to be able to handle a large number of candidates easily.

Wardens:

• The wardens are responsible for making sure information is being entered accurately. As a result, they would like to check the total number of votes entered on both precinct and county levels.
• They will need to be able to add totals to make sure information is accurate.
• Wardens are paid per election, so they would like this process to be fast and efficient.