One Design Firm's Quest To Make Voting Less Annoying

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City Lab: What L.A. County Is Doing To  Make Voting Suck Less

It's a cherished and fundamental right, but voting can be complicated. Registration, long lines, and getting to the correct polling location are just a few of the potential obstacles that stand between Americans and the exercising of their civic duties. That's why, as Brentin Mock reports in CityLab, Los Angeles County has commissioned Ideo, a design company, to make casting a ballot much more convenient for its citizens in future elections.  

In 2013, Ideo began developing a new touchscreen-enabled, mobile voting system that is both more responsive and accessible than previous polling techniques. The new process has voters prepare an "Interactive Sample Ballot" (ISB) that a machine will scan at the polling center.

If a voter doesn't have the time to fill out an ISB beforehand, they simply cast their vote using the touch screen feature when they arrive. At any stage of the process voters are able to change their votes and can receive a printed copy of their selection.

The designers are mindful of the potential for even small changes to the process to deter or confuse voters. "Although we are designing a new system, there are things out there that people are used to and part of our role as designers is to leverage some of those experiences," Blaise Bertrand, Ideo's lead designer, told Fast Company in July. 

LA County has invested nearly $15 million in the project. The new voting arcade is projected to start in 2020. 

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