"State election offices have made considerable strides in getting Web sites up and running. Yet as more and more Americans seek information online, it is no longer enough for election offices merely to put information online," said Michael Caudell-Feagan, director of Make Voting Work. "Voters are turning to the Web with basic questions about how to cast their ballot. And our study shows that state Web sites need to do a better job in meeting those needs. There are simple things outlined in this report that every state can do to improve services and make the democratic process easier."
Researchers with the Pew Center on the States, in conjunction with Nielson Norman Group, a leading Internet usability firm, measured the usability and effectiveness of state election Web sites based on key benchmarks including:
- How easily users can locate the site on the Web
- How easy it is for users to navigate through the site and understand content
- How well the homepage is organized
- How easy it is for users to search the site
- How well the site incorporates online tools to further help users locate information.
Some of the study's key findings include:
- The average usability score for election Web sites in the 50 states
and the District of Columbia is 58 percent -- ranging from a high of
77 percent (Iowa) to a low of 33 percent (New Hampshire) - When using popular search engines such as Google, only 34 states
appear as the first search term when searching for "voting in [STATE
NAME]"; and only 38 official state Web sites appear as the first
search result when users enter in their state name with "polling
place" - Thirty-four states have a poll locator tool, but only 11 states will
identify a polling location for any address in the state -- helping
voters to easily find the basic information they will need to vote - Half the states including the District of Columbia (53 percent) offer
a way for users to verify their registration online - By not improving their sites, states are missing an opportunity to
save money on voter telephone help lines -- up to $100 per call
The report also includes recommendations for improvements and provides details about the Voting Information Project (VIP), a joint effort of state and local election officials, Make Voting Work and
Google Inc., that aims to bring official voting information -- polling place locations, ballot content and information about registration and absentee ballots -- directly to voters via the Internet. Currently, six states have made official data available using VIP and several more states are in development.
"We know that, on average, people spend less than two minutes on a Web site before they give up on their search for information," said Kil Huh, research project director at the Pew Center on the States and a lead researcher on the report. "Too many of the Web sites we visited included historical information, inadequate search functions and mislabeled links that may prevent locating what users need. If voters turning to the Internet can't easily find the information they need to cast their ballots in November, it could drive up the volume of calls and, thus, costs to election officials with limited resources."
Make Voting Work conducted its research in conjunction with the Nielson Norman Group, a leading Internet usability firm, and used commonly accepted standards for Web search and usability. To develop benchmarks for usability criteria, data were initially collected and analyzed between September 4-15, 2008 and reevaluated between October 6-7, 2008 from state election Web sites.