Hi, Guys,
Well, for once, the state of Georgia is the leader of the nation today.

Every single voting booth in every precinct in every county in the entire
state of Georgia is using the touch-screen machines made by Diebold.  Every
one of the more than eleven-thousand machines in the state is already
equipped with the capability for audio output, and the visual output on the
screen can also be greatly enlarged.

Where I voted this morning, only one of the 20 machines had the external
keypad that makes navigation a little easier, and they had only one
over-the-ear headset.  The machines have a standard audio jack that accepts
the same type of stereo headset plug that is used almost universally on
portable and walk-around radios and tape players and CD players.  Each
machine also has an industry-standard RS-232C serial port which could accept
an external device, such as a braille-equipped notetaker or computer, or
some kind of control device such as a mouthstick or Morse code keyer.

The process went very smoothly.  The audio instructions were clear and the
speech was easily understandable.  I would have liked to have been able to
speed up the reading quite a bit.

It really felt good to walk up to that machine and complete an entire
balloting process without any assistance from anybody else, reading the
information in private, and making my selections without somebody looking
over my shoulder.

When I finished the process and handed in the little key card, I was
accosted by a representative frojm Diebold who wanted to know what I thought
of his machine and how I thought it might be improved.

I suggested that each machine should have the navigational keypad, maybe it
could be actually built into the machine, instead of being a separate
plug-in device.  I suggested that every machine should be already equipped
for total access, and that even the demo machine should have the audio
capability turned on.  They said the demo machine placed at the door to the
outside of the voting room was not set up for audio output.  The capability
was there, but it was not turned on, and the demo machine was not outfitted
with the keypad and the headset.

For the past week, the Georgia Secretary of State's Office has been running
an ad in which a nice little old grandmotherly type lady croons on about how
it is so wonderfully easy to use this new machine.  "If you can use a
microwave, you can do this!" she enthuses.

Actually, the machine is easier to use than at least half of the microwave
ovens currently on the market in this area.

The only people who vote in Georgia in this NOvember 5 election who want
have the pleasure to use this thing are those who decided to have a
traditional paper absentee ballot mailed to them.

I would not be surprised at all if every single vote will have been tallied
and reported in Grogia, statewide, within two hours after the polls have
closed, three at the most if some precincts get a last-minute rush of people
wanting to vote.

I have used those bed-sheet-sized absentee ballots, those funky punch card
ballots that produced the famous hanging chads, like in Florida in  2000,
those clunky old metalic monsters with the rows of levers you throw to one
side or the other, just about every kind of voting technology that has been
in common use since the early 1970's in this country.  The way I did it
today was the best of them all by far.

It makes me feel really good that in this state, even had I been living in
the smallest, poorest, most rural county in the state, I would have still
used the latest and most PWD-friendly and accessible modern vote-casting
technology available.

According to the Diebold company representative who was there to make sure
his product was performing up to expectations, that particular machine is
being used in Los Angeles County, California, a few cities and counties in
Maryland, and the entire state of Georgia.

Voting was especially pleasant for me this morning, even though I went home
in a chilly rain after it was done, and had to wait several minutes outside
under a lowering slightly chilled sky, to get in thanks to the long line of
all those people who decided they would stop off and vote on their way in to
work.

The machine even did not complain as some well-meaning sighted assistants
have been wont to do, when it came time to completely read the entire text
of the proposed constitutional ammendments and the state-wide and
county-wide refferenda at the bottom of the ballot.

Reply to: [log in to unmask]
Brent Reynolds, Atlanta, GA  USA

Feudalism: It's your Count that votes.


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