HI, Mary,
Lots of people complained about the low partitions, or the nonexistent
partitions between machines at many precincts, thus allowing others to see
the screens and watch how others were voting.  The partitions set up to make
the voting booths are not a function of the electronic voting machines.
They could easily have used those old thin curtain dividers on the pipe
frames to separate machines, and could have still hung the thin curtains
behind the voter to give privacy, like we had in some precincts with those
old punch-card and paper contraptions that most of us used in the primary
elections in August.

While it was good that there was at least one fully accessible machine, with
a keypad, a headset, and audio capabilities turned on, in every precinct, I
told the Diebold representative that I felt that the audio feature should
have been enabled on every single machine in every single precinct, that
each machine should have had a keypad ready and available, and that the demo
machine near the door should have had every feature enabled and ready to be
demonstrated before its potential user would actually go to the machine that
would actually cast the vote, in case anybody might want to have it
demonstrated before using it for real.

I also advised the rep that the company, and the Secretary of State's office
should have notified everybody by means of radio, television, and print
media outlets, that the machines are audio-output enabled and that any voter
who wanted to use the speech output could bring the same portable headphones
they use with any walk-around tape, radio, or CD devices which just about
everybody has at least one of, these days.

Even though at least one machine was set up for audio output, the capability
is already built into every single machine in the state.  All functions, and
all capabilities should be active and enabled on every single machine in
every single precinct, and thus available for anybody to use, including
people who are not visually impaired.

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

Vote YES for braille on speed limit signs.


VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html