Challenges at the voting booth...

This email was just forwarded to me

Subject: Challenges at the voting booth...
To: Julie Wise <Julie.Wise@kingcounty.gov>, secretary @secstate.wa.gov


Attn: Julie Wise, King County Election Operations Lead
Sam Reed, Secretary of State


On Monday, I went to the King County election training facility to get
practice on how to use the Diebold touch screen voting machine. Since
I will be working as a poll worker, responsible for helping the
disabled use this machine accurately, I wanted to practice using the
AVU (Accessible Voting Unit) machine and make sure I understand how it
works for people with various types of disabilities.

I voted on a sample ballot as a "blind" voter, a "wheelchair" voter,
and a voter who started to use the Diebold machine, but then decided
to vote on paper instead of a touch screen.

It appears that the voting screen can be angled enough for a
wheelchair voter who is capable of lifting up their arms above their
head, but not for a disabled voter who cannot reach up. The AVU
machine cannot be lowered.

The biggest problems I encountered related to the blind. The poll
trainers were not familiar with the audio set up for the machines, and
told me that they had never heard it themselves, and one said she
wasn't sure it would even work on this test machine. Blind voters are
expected to vote on a touch screen by using a number keypad. But this
keypad does NOT have braille on it! I asked how a blind person would
know how to use the 12 button keypad, and I was told they could read
about it on a long, braille instruction sheet. Keep in mind that
keypads are not all laid out the same way - phone keypads have 1,2,3
at the top, and computer keypads have 1,2,3 at the bottom.

To make it more challenging, as I voted using the audio headphones, I
found that in order to type in letters, I have to go through a very
tedious process where I have to verify every letter by pressing zero,
and even have to verify a "space" with zero. It was challenging for
me even though I could actually SEE what was happening on the screen!

If a voter decides to vote on a paper ballot, they would be presented
with the same paper ballot that sighted people received, since no
braille ballots are available. Perhaps it is assumed that a blind
voter would have a helper with them, since poll workers cannot help
them vote, due to privacy concerns, but this was never clarified to
me.

In the future elections in King County, ALL ballots will be mailed in.
But in THIS election, we need to make sure that ALL voters,
regardless of their physical or mental abilities or limitations, CAN
vote and have their vote counted.

I would greatly appreciate your clarification of how I can make sure
that blind voters, as well as other disabled voters, can be sure to
have their votes accurately cast and counted, on both the Diebold
machine AND on paper ballots.

Thank you,
Mark Banks