An Observational Study of Voters on the Internet

Voters in a democracy have the responsibility to learn about the candidates and issues on which they are deciding. The internet offers voters unparalleled opportunities for finding information relevant to elections. Use of the internet for politics is increasing dramatically, yet we know little about the details of what people are doing with it. We describe an observational think-aloud study of people using the internet in a mock-voting situation. Our voters were primarily opportunistic browsers following a noncompensatory search strategy who engaged in simultaneous searching, reading, evaluating, and deciding. Based on our results, we offer ideas for the design of a voter portal.