Could an HCI Specialist have prevented the 2000 Election Problems?

I can tell you, regular people get tripped up by the simplest things. It is sobering to observe a test where a user repeatedly asks "How do I go to the next step?" and you want to scream "Click the 'Next' button!" that they just somehow can't see. You thought the button was obvious, but, as anyone who's missed a highway exit learns, in the real world what's obvious to one person who knows the answer is not always obvious to a newcomer. People who are making fun of the voters who made mistakes should think about the obvious mistakes they've made in their lives. If "most people" never have problems doing simple things why were there so many flashing 12:00s on old VCRs? Would usability testing (which often only uses 5-20 people of each background) have caught it? I think so.

Dan Bricklin, Designer of VisiCalc and other widely used programs