Nov 4, 04:42 PM

DS Players have a Voting Advantage?

I’m in Colorado, one of the states which has switched to electronic touch-screen voting this year for the first time. As I was doing early voting last week, sifting through page after page on a machine casting my ballot, I began to wonder: is everyone going to take to it so easily?

I used to work at a drug store where they had this self-serve touch screen kiosk that customers could use to print photos off of their digital cameras – there were a lot of people (heavily skewed towards the elderly demographic) who were totally put off by using it. They made things that seemed intuitive to me, such as knowing where to touch a button or how to scroll down a page, seem like we had asked them to diffuse a nuclear bomb – it was total brain lock. There is a large segment of the population out there who are simply not electronically literate.

People who have used touch screen interfaces, like the DS, I think have a good advantage over those who haven’t used one before. E-voting, while it still has some pretty seriously scary security concerns, could in the end turn out to be a boon for gamers who vote. It will take us less time, less mental strain, and be a lot more stress free. People who are not technology literate (who often have voting behavior opposed to ours) will have a much more difficult time voting. This works out in our favor.

Maybe this could be a new marketing campaign for Nintendo – learn to vote – buy a DS! It might work in that old-person-who-doesn’t-know-crap-about-technology demographic that they seem so devoted to.

-Jon
- permalink

  1. I believe the real difference is people who have used the internet/computers and not. Using a stylus isn’t that much different than pointing and clicking with a mouse. It’s about the visual interface, not the tactile sense of pushing a button or flipping a switch.

    — Andrew    Nov 4, 06:17 PM    #

commenting closed for this article