Psychology researcher Philip Kortum of Rice University has revealed that apart from issues related to security that may affect this year's US election, "poor interfaces" of ballot design also could lead to user error that may likely impact voters' behavior and the outcome of the ballot.

An article published in the upcoming Current Directions in Psychological Science December 2016 issue explained how the design of voting interfaces significantly affects the behavior of voters. The article was authored by Kortum and Michael Byrne

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Kortum asserted in the paper that "following the fallout from the 2000 presidential election, it became clear that we did not fully understand how our voting systems were operating from a psychological perspective, and that this lack of understanding could have serious consequences in voting outcomes." 

One of the well-known cases that involved ballot designs traces back to the 2000 presidential election where the ambiguous markings on "butterfly ballots" resulted in unclear voters' behavior and intentions. There are ballots that have inapprehensible interface, so voters end up selecting either zero or too many candidates. This ultimately leads to the nullification of the ballot.

The researchers explained that the switch to electronic ballots would not solve the design issues. Kortum stressed that the "widespread deployment of electronic voting machines over the last 10 years has failed to address this problem - sometimes even making it worse - because these systems do not incorporate what we know about the psychology design and human error."

Since voting technologies are used only during elections and often subjected to changes, voters miss the opportunity to learn how to utilize them through continual and recurrent usage. Further, even the "highly motivated people" who exert effort to register and cast the ballot may end up losing their votes due to errors.

With their findings, the authors recommended that voting interfaces and ballot design should be designed according to the psychological processes of votes, considering their attention, perception, and memory.

Kortum disclosed that they are working with "election officials in Texas and California as part of a team that includes computer scientists and other voting experts to build voting systems that not only have security properties, but allow the voter to quickly, easily and accurately cast their vote as they intend, even if it's the first time they have voted."

The study revealed that the ballot design must win the trust of the public and not sway voters' behavior.