It's nice you are so informed and have such good luck with your voting
experiences Mary.  Perhaps I am reading to closely into your message, but
it almost seems you are dismissing the problems other disabled voters
have had from time to time.  After all, each individual person will have a
unique voting experiences each time they vote, and when you multiply the
numbers of voters, certain problems can crop up from time to time.  If
there are problems for the voting systems which appear from time to time,
and a systematic situation seems to appear, it is worth looking into it to
see if there are problems which may disenfranchise certain people at some
times.

Certain people who have had no problems in voting find it difficult to
understand that problems may still exist.  After all, "I'm blind and
NEVER had a problem, so what's all the fuss?.  You may think differently
when you are ninety and may be a little confused.  The ballot in Chicago
last election had something like 550 candidates on it, very crowded.

Furthermore, certain disabled groups have different problems dealing with
voting.  For example, in most polling locations, if one is totally blind,
they will need to rely on a friend to help them vote or a polling
official.  They will not actually see the ballot or voting equipment which
has to be interacted upon to cast the vote.  They will be dependent on the
abilities of their assistant to actually decipher the choices.  Of course,
the totally blind person can punch with the stylus, can make sure the
ballot is clean of chads, actually place the ballot into an envelope or
the tally box, etc. but the actual process of voting and deciphering the
printed ballot is up to the assistant.

So just because you have had a perfect, seamless and unimpeded voting
experience, doesn't mean that your experience exactly translates to the
experiences of all citizens. It also doesn't mean that those experiences
and reports are invalid or to be taken with a grain of salt as complains
of whining, uninformed voters.  Physical barriers are physical
barriers.  Just because you've never had a poll official refuse you a
spoiled ballot replacement, doesn't mean that is the case for every
other voter. Furthermore it is beyond credulity to believe that absolutely
every punch card machine is set and in perfect running operation all the
time.  Ultimately, computerized balloting is the most likely solution to
uniform methods throughout the country.  If people don't have confidence
in their voting equipment and systems it doesn't promote democratic
processes either. At this stage we hardly need less confidence in the
system, we need people to step up and vote and feel as comfortable as
possible that their vote counted, once not twice, and that political
shananogans didn't modify their votes.

Here in Chicago we have a curious situation.  Cook County, Chicago's
county and nearby suburbs, mostly democratic, have been given the money to
purchase voting equipment which can be used to allow the individual voter
to check to see if their punch card ballot has been accidently double
voted upon, that is, two candidates for the same position.  It can also
check to see if certain races have not been voted upon at all by the
voter.  The equipment is actually very flexible, and can be set to
decipher various aspects of the ballot as necessary.  You may feel
that isn't necessary, after all, the voter should take that responsibility
into their own hands, etc.

However, the leader of the State House, has always blocked any attempt to
permit into the law the ability of Cook County to actually USE this double
checking equipment.  The county can, and has purchased the equipment, but
is denied by law it's use.  Philips, his name, btw, is a republican.
Should that make a difference?  Why of course not, Common sense would tell
you that it makes perfect sense to say to a county that they can purchase
the equipment which can minimize spoiled ballots and not be allowed to use
it.  That's what some call good governance.

But curiously, another aspect of this quality, equalized and totally fair
voting system we have is that the suburban counties beyond Cook are also
permitted to own these devices which check for double votes.  So we're
equal, the system works.

Not quite, the difference is that the suburban counties, which hold a
majority of republican voters, are permitted to USE the equipment.  Should
this make a difference?  Why, of course not, how silly.

Steve

On Sun, 29 Jul 2001, Mary Blanton wrote:

I am Legally Blind.  (My vision has fluctuated between 20/200 and 20/400 in
the course of my adult life due to things like suddenly NOT Latent Infantile
Cataracts.)  I have been that way since birth due to Autosomal Dominant
Coloboma of the Iris and Lens.  For the first six years I voted, I voted
Absentee, as I was attending college out-of-state.  Then, I got married and
moved to Atlanta, GA.

I have voted EVERY TIME I have had the opportunity to.  I NEVER pass up the
opportunity to exercise what I consider one of the MOST important rights we
enjoy in this country.  I have been presented with exactly the same kind of
ballot in each and every election I have voted in in the past 16 years.  It
is exactly the same ballot that SUPPOSEDLY caused so many problems for the
voters in 3 of the 69 counties in Florida, that "inherently unfair and
confusing" "punchcard ballot".  I have even been presented with that
"inherently confusing and unfair" "butterfly ballot" on occasion.  (If you
get the hint that I am being the slightest bit sarcastic, you are right.)

I have NEVER had a problem using those ballots.  I have NEVER struggled to
figure out what hole to punch.  (Even for this "blind chick", the arrows have
been straight-forward enough to allow me to cast a LEGAL ballot for the
candidates I want to represent me.)  I have NEVER had a problem with "chad".
(Maybe I am just a little smarter than the "average bear".  But, I have
ALWAYS flipped my ballot card over to make sure there were no stray bits of
"chad" left henging from it before I deposited it.)  AND, I have ALWAYS known
that if, for ANY reason, I DID have a problem, I could and SHOULD ask a Poll
Worker for assistance.  (I HAVE spoiled a ballot and I HAVE gotten a
replacement without a problem.)

I have voted in several different areas (counties) in the Atlanta Metro
Area.  I have voted in Fulton County, the county Atlanta City is in.  I have
voted in Dekalb County, the county directly east of Atlanta City.  And I have
voted in Forsyth County, the county directly north of Fulton County.  And I
know people that have voted in virtually every one of the rest of the
counties in the Atlanta Metro Area.  (So I know a little bit about the types
of booths used in the Atlanta Metro Area.)  This includes areas that could
very easily be compared to the areas in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade
counties where people supposedly ran into so many problems.  This inclides
areas where, if compared to the Florida counties, Poll Workers were rude and
unhelpful.  I have NEVER found a Poll Worker SO rude and unhelpful that they
would NOT help a Disabled person cast a proper ballot.  (When my husband and
I first married, we lived in some of the "less desirable" areas of the
Atlanta Metro Area.)

The booths used in most GA counties look alot like the privacy desks you
might find at some Public Libraries.  There are barriers rising from three
sides of the DESK SURFACE.  There is no booth, where you have to "squeeze
through a 5-inch
partition to get into the voting booth"  AND, there has ALWAYS been several
booths specifically narked for the use of the Disabled.  The voting booths
still in use in MOST of the Georgia counties look just like what you saw in
use in Florida.  The ones specifically marked for the Disabled had been
lowered to the height that made them accessable to the wheelchair-bound.

However, a COUPLE of GA counties used a ScanTron type of ballot for the first
time in November.  I do NOT know what the booths looked like in those
counties, but I was under the impression they looked VERY MUCH like the ones
used by the counties still using the punchcard ballots.  (Now, in NY, where
they still use the mechanical, lever type booths, that is a different story.
I understand that if you are wheelchair bound or overweight, you could
experience problems entering THOSE booths.)

I just don't get where Senator Dodd is getting his information from.  He is
NOT a Senator from GA.  Max Clealand and Zell Miller are our Senators.  If he
is a House member, then he is from South Georgia because I have never heard
of him.  (If Rep. Cynthia McKinney has not complained too loudly about the
booths used in the Atlanta Metro Area, I would not put too much stock in the
validity of this story.  She is usually the first one to start screamin if
minorities have been "slighted".  She started screaming about "Natural Hair
Discrimination" several years ago after having an altercation with a doorman
because he just did NOT believe someone sporting Dreads could possibly be a
Federal Representative.  She represents Dekalb County.)

Mary Blanton
An informed Voter from Georgia



Kelly Pierce wrote:

> Senator Dodd has a blind relative who is a retired New york city school
> teacher.
>
> Kelly
>
> Panel Hears About Poll Problems
>
> By DAVID LIGHTMAN
> The Hartford Courant
>
> Jul 24 2001 12:00AM
>
> ATLANTA - Imagine, said Anil Lewis, going to vote and being told you
> first have to clear a 10-foot vertical leap.
>
> And once you're over that hurdle, you have to squeeze through a 5-inch
> partition to get into the voting booth. That, the Georgia spokesman for
> the blind
> told the Senate Rules Committee, is the equivalent of what disabled
> voters face all the time.
>
> This is the kind of very personal, wrenching testimony committee Chairman
> Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., and his colleagues wanted to hear as they
> conducted
> the first in what is expected to be a series of nationwide hearings to
> document problems people had when they went to the polls last year.
>
> Dodd and 50 colleagues are pushing sweeping changes in how elections are
> run and have two gusts of wind at their back: a bipartisan desire to
> never again
> endure the kind of fiasco Florida experienced last year and a strong
> feeling in minority communities that they were disproportionately refused
> the right
> to vote.
>
> Monday, Dodd tried to add more momentum by bringing average folks before
> his committee to testify.
>
> "The evidence is piling up," Dodd said. "Florida was not an aberration.
> What happened there happened everywhere."
>
> Dodd, though, met with his usual nemesis: Local officials who aren't
> crazy about Washington meddling in their affairs. "Federal mandates are
> not the solution,"
> said Hans A. von Spakovsky, vice chairman of the Fulton County (Ga.)
> election board.
>
> But the testimony from Lewis and others, so different in tone and
> substance from the carefully prepared statements and rehearsed answers of
> Washington,
> helped Dodd win the public relations war.
>
> Juanita Cribb, a teacher from Stone Mountain, Ga., warned at the outset
> "I like to talk, so I may go on awhile," while a subdued Diane Smith of
> Rex, Ga.,
> was more nervous and kept her testimony quick. Civil rights leader Joseph
> E. Lowery compared the current struggle to the 1965 voting rights march
> from
> Selma to Montgomery, Ala.
>
> In this civil rights-conscious city, where Martin Luther King preached
> and the courthouse sits beside a street that bears his name, Lowery made
> it clear
> this was not just about Florida.
>
> "Our nation must respond again to the cries of its people," he said.
>
> To hammer home the point that justice was denied, Dodd held the hearing
> in a federal courtroom on top of a downtown office building, one of those
> southern
> sanctuaries where civil rights battles were fought, and ultimately won,
> for half a century.
>
> There was nothing fancy here. Dodd sat in front of a huge tan wall whose
> monotony was broken only by a video camera, a U.S. District Court seal
> and two
> silver thermostats.
>
> The most lasting impressions were the words, as most of the seven
> witnesses made similar points. "I felt assaulted and I felt downright
> insulted," the outspoken
> Cribb said about her Election Day ordeal as she explained how she and
> others had to wait more than six hours at her Lithonia, Ga., precinct
> because of
> power failures and other problems.
>
> There were no fancy charts or studies, and the one attempt to
> Washington-ize things went nowhere. People for the American Way, a
> Washington activist group,
> brought someone from the capital to pass out T-shirts screaming "You Have
> the Right to Vote."
>
> In Washington, the black and white shirts/symbols would have gone quickly
> and allowed the audience to send a silent message. Here, only three of
> about 100
> spectators took the shirts. It was more notable that civil rights leaders
> such as former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson simply sat in the audience,
> offering
> by his presence consent to what was occurring in front of them.
>
> In fact, Lewis proudly pointed out at the end of his statement that he
> had not even mentioned Florida's electoral problems and that "I have made
> my appeal
> without the use of statistics."
>
> Whether all this will give Dodd's effort to reform voting the kind of
> impetus he wants is still uncertain.
>
> There were no Republicans present, and Smith, who was denied the right to
> vote because of a registration mix-up, said afterward that could hurt the
> cause.
> Von Spakovsky was the only witness skeptical of Dodd's reforms, and there
> was a minor local flap when State Rep. Bob Irvin said Dodd withdrew his
> invitation
> to testify after learning Irvin would challenge Georgia Sen. Max Cleland
> next year.
>
> Dodd nonetheless thought his cause was moving ahead quickly. He hopes to
> send his bill to the full Senate in the fall and has the strong backing
> of Senate
> Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle, who has vowed to make it one of the
> year's top legislative priorities.
>
> The staff of Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who is offering competing
> legislation, was present Monday, indicating McConnell is open to some
> change. He told
> Senate colleagues in Washington he was ready to support more funding for
> reform immediately.
>
> Dodd's bill, the stronger of the two, would provide funding and resources
> to states that want to improve voting technology, as well as train poll
> workers,
> update voting rolls and effect other changes.
>
> And it has three key differences from McConnell's. It would require
> states to allow voters to have sample ballots before election day, permit
> "provisional
> voting" that allows a questionable vote to eventually count if a mistake
> was made, and provide equal access for all voters.
>
> VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
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--
+----------------------------+
|  Steve Zielinski  (N8UJS)  |
|      [log in to unmask]      |
+----------------------------+


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