Brent and others,

I am reporting from Appleton, WS.  I flew out early Wed. morning.  (I gave up
seeing the Packers play Monday Night Football LIVE to NOT vote Absentee and to
use the new voting machines.)

I had a VERY easy time voting as well.  The only problems I saw were the
following.  The panels on either side, making sure the person next to you could
NOT see who you were voting for were too short.  (Even NOT in Large Print Mode,
the print is fairly large.)  Also, the elevator bar on the side that appears
when you are in Review Mode was a little small and difficult to see.  (I have
already talked to the Chairman of the Board of Elections in Forsyth County and
he is taking this to the Secretary of State.  He actually CALLED ME to find out
what my opinion was of the new machines as a "disabled voter".)  In MY precinct,
ALL Audio and Video options were available, all peripherals were attached, all
machines worked, the lighting was good and the process was smooth and easy.  I
am VERY proud of the work my County put into MAKING SURE THIS election was
problem free.

I WAS a little suprised that it took as long as it did to get Georgia's numbers
in.  But, I guess the SOS office and the BOEs had some new processes to get used
to.  Overall, I am VERY pleased with this election.

Mary Blanton
UnIncorporated Forsyth Count, Georgia)

Brent Reynolds wrote:

> 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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