I voted. Georgia is what those electoral college tracking apps call a "Strong Bush State," so who knows what effect I'm having, but nevertheless I did my part.

Given that all previous elections I can immediately recall used the chad-producing punch-cards, and considering all the controversy about the newly minted Diebold electronic voting machines, I was curious to try one out. My verdict? A curious experience that I tried to run through the game design filter. Here's how it went:

(Update: Boing Boing reports on a "Dumbold" voting machine download for The Sims, and There sports its own voter registration booth -- thanks to Aleks!)

(1) Enter polling center
(2) Get paper form from poll worker
(3) Fill out paper form, including specifying my county, what kind of election it was (general, special, etc.), and filling out my name and address
(4) Get in line to be validated against the registered voter list.
(5) Get out of line because I skipped a step, namely...
(6) Go to nearby desk, hand paper form and picture ID to poll worker to verify. Watch poll worker write my last name on the form (which I'd already done) and sign.
(7) Get in line to be validated against the registered voter list.
(8) Wait in line. Watch others get into and out of my line (A-L) even though they belonged in the much shorter line (M-Z), because the lines weren't visibly marked.
(9) Hand paper form with signature from (6) to poll worker. Watch poll worker find my name on voter registration list, then sign paper form again.
(10) Go to nearby desk, hand paper form to poll worker, wait while he tries to reset the ballot smartcard with special smartcard tool. Finally get smartcard.
(11) Go to Diebold voting machine booth. Insert smartcard into Diebold machine.
(12) Read instructions provided on Diebold machine.
(13) Cast votes on touchscreen.
(14) Confirm votes with voting summary on Diebold machine. Eject smartcard.
(15) Walk to exit desk, give ballot smartcard to poll worker. Receive peach-emblazoned "I'm a Georgia Voter" sticker.
(16) Leave polling center

Using the Deibold machine was relatively easy for me, but several voters seemed to have invalid cards. The poll workers didn't seem well-equipped to deal with this, and in some cases accused the voters of committing user error. More generally, voters were confused about the process. Why so many steps? Much of the process seemed like a kind of sick Jim Crow game: steps 2 - 6 above seem replete with cognitive dissonance-inducing written and cultural literacy issues. I was most surprised by the use of a smartcard ballot. I wonder if voters find it more distressing to validate a feedback loop of intended to actual votes in an impenetrable bright yellow smartcard than in a physically-punched standard ballot.

But generally what was missing was... the glowing red circle from Grand Theft Auto that tells me where my next goal lies. This would have been pretty simple; just hang some big signs with numbered steps from the ceiling. The point is, games are pretty good at orienting people inside of complex processes and environments. The process of registering to vote and then actually voting is not a simple one. Then bind to the process of learning an unfamiliar environment with lots of people all in a hurry to get to the rest of their day. And that doesn't factor in the process of learning about the actual issues.

I'm not going to suggest that a voter registration and polling center videogame is the answer. Rather, I want to point out that the Diebold machines were focused on a particular kind of information design -- a reasonably successful one from an HCI perspective, bracketing the broader controversy about the machines. But the voting process extends beyond that machine, and good polling place design needs to account for the entire voting process -- which in turn means creating mental maps for the cultural context, the physical environment and the actual ballot-casting process as a flow, not a black box.

If you think I'm overanalyzing, compare my Diebold voting experience with my GTA: San Andreas experience. Voting took me about 20 minutes. In that same time playing GTA, I'd oriented myself to at least five major characters, a large portion of a virtual city I'd never seen before, and at least a half-dozen game rules and goals that oriented me toward my first major mission.