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A Review of the Literature on Voter Verification and Ballot Review
Published
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.
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)