Clemson professor’s voting system to be used in engineer society’s election

Published: March 30, 2010

CLEMSON — The National Society of Black Engineers will use an electronic voting system developed by Clemson University professor Juan Gilbert and his team of researchers. 

The society will use Prime III for its national elections this week in Toronto, Canada. 

Gilbert, director and chairman of the Human-Centered Computing division of the School of Computing, developed Prime III following the 2000 presidential elections while he was at Auburn University.

The tight race between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore led to a recount of votes in swing-state Florida. The voting process in Florida took center stage as many voters experienced difficulties using punch-card voting machines.

“We were at a conference and we heard a person presenting on electronic voting and they were saying very negative things about the process, and that motivated us to do something.” Gilbert said.

Gilbert and his team of researchers came up with Prime III, a voting machine that can be used universally, even by the disabled.

“So if you have a disability, you don’t have to use a machine different from someone else,” Gilbert said.

The machine allows people to vote by touch or voice. The team conducted studies with blind and deaf people as well as senior citizens and concluded Prime III is the world’s most-accessible voting technology.

“If you can’t see, you can’t hear, you can’t read… if you’re blind, illiterate, if you don’t have arms even, you can still vote privately, independently and securely on the same machine as anyone else,” Gilbert said.

Prime III garnered a lot of media attention as Gilbert and his researchers made a case for its use before Congress.

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