The pedagogic opportunities of touch-screen voting

Abstract

Touch-screen systems have been used to count votes in a growing number of precincts across the United States. These controversial systems provide an opportunity for valuable classroom discussions both for service courses and courses for computer science majors This paper begins with an overview of touch-screen voting systems in the United States. It describes ways to productively address this issue with university classes at various levels in the curriculum. It is hoped that this paper will be a useful resource to professors looking to bring this important issue into their classroom, perhaps as a partial requirement of an ethics and social implications module of a course's coverage.