A Review of the Literature on Voter Verification and Ballot Review

Published

July 8, 2024

Author(s)

Whitney Quesenbery, Suzanne Chapman, Christopher Patten, Roberto Spreggiaro, Shanee Dawkins

Abstract

One of the major issues for voting systems today is whether they provide voters with a meaningful opportunity to verify their ballot before casting it. This opportunity is important in helping them vote their intent by catching errors or omissions made during marking, such as skipping a contest or mis-marking a selection. It is also an opportunity to confirm that whether the ballot is marked by hand or printed by a BMD, it accurately reflects their choices – including finding any malicious changes (or software errors) made by the voting system between the voter's review and the printing of the ballot. This review of the literature was done in preparation for research to understand how voters approach the task of marking, reviewing, verifying, and casting a ballot. We included not only research on voting systems and voting, but on related issues of trust, privacy, and mental models.

Citation

Grant/Contract Reports (NISTGCR) - 24-052

Report Number

24-052

NIST Pub Series

Grant/Contract Reports (NISTGCR)

Pub Type

NIST Pubs

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.GCR.24-052

Local Download

Keywords

ballot marking devices, BMD, ballot review, hand-marked ballots, paper ballot, usability, voter ballot verification.

Citation

Quesenbery, W. , Chapman, S. , Patten, C. , Spreggiaro, R. and Dawkins, S. (2024), A Review of the Literature on Voter Verification and Ballot Review, Grant/Contract Reports (NISTGCR), National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, [online], https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.GCR.24-052, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=958067 (Accessed October 13, 2025)