GVI, the Graphical Voter Interface, comes with a complete demo of an actual general election in Santa Clara County, California in November, 1998 (precinct 1221 at George Miner Elementary School in San Jose). The demo implements both the English and Spanish language versions of the election. The following screenshots are taken from the demo.
The GVI main window is intended to fill the entire screen exactly. In a real election, the voter gets a mouse (or a touchscreen), but no keyboard. In "real" mode (intended for real elections) the normal window manager controls are disabled to prevent the voter from closing or minimizing the window or launching another application with the mouse. This can be inconvenient for demonstrations, so the "demo" mode is provided as the default with normal window controls.
The navigation panel in the left half of the screen gives the voter random access to any office or item, and it also provides a summary of items completed. The voting items are arranged into groups, as shown. The violet buttons indicate the currently active group and item. The control panel in the upper right allows the voter to step sequentially through the voting items in lieu of using the navigation panel. The actual voting panel is below the control panel on the right.
The voting procedure must be very simple, of course, because most voters will have little or no time for training. Although GVI may appear complicated at first glance, note that the navigation panel on the left is provided for convenience only and its use is completely optional. All the voter really needs is the control panel on the upper right and the voting panel on the lower right. The navigation panel can be eliminated if necessary (with a command-line option). Without the navigation panel, GVI will fit on a smaller monitor.
The next shot shows the GVI main window after a few votes have been entered. So far, the voter has cast votes for both of the United States Federal offices, as indicated by the "X" to the left of the button for that group. The buttons turn to skyblue to indicate completion. The voter has also voted for 2 of the 10 California State Offices, as indicated by the 2 to the left of that group. The voter has selected 3 candidates for Governor and 3 for Lieutenant Governor, as shown. The voting panel for Lieutenant Governor is currently active.
Note that GVI can be easily "downgraded" (with a command-line option) for conventional plurality elections, so that each voter can select only one candidate for each office. It can also be configured (again, by command-line option) for Approval Voting, which allows each voter to select multiple candidates (without ranking them).
In a multi-language election, the following language selection pop-up window automatically appears centered over the main window at start-up (for each voter).
After the language is selected, the following instruction window automatically appears at the bottom of the screen over the main window (in a single-language election, it appears automatically at start-up). It can be closed with the "hide" button in its lower-left corner. It can be re-displayed at any time with the green "help" button in the upper-right corner of the main window.
The following write-in "keyboard" pop-up window appears centered over the main window when the voter clicks on the "write-in" button at the end of the list of candidates. Note that write-ins can be disabled (with a command-line option) if necessary.
The following party-line voting pop-up window appears centered over the main window when the voter clicks the "parties" button on the help window. It allows voters to automatically initialize their votes along party lines. It does not override any previous votes, and individual items can still be changed before the ballot is submitted. Party-line voting is not allowed everywhere, so it can be disabled (with a command-line option) if necessary.
The following exit confirmation pop-up window appears centered over the main window when the voter clicks on the red "exit" button in the upper-right corner of the main window. The voter can go back and change any votes until clicking "yes" on this window.
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