VOTERS WITH DISABILITIES: THE KEY TO ELECTION REFORM…OR THE LOCK ON IT?

Given the ongoing discussion, here:

CONYERS INTRODUCES LEGISLATION: VOTE RIGHTS ACT 2005

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x314989>


I decided to go looking for perspectives from the people with disabilities community.

Some folk here at DU are probably pretty familiar with this issue within the issue, and I hope they’ll weigh in on it. Haven't researched deeply at all, but thought to post to help us consider what we're dealing with.

Seems there is a HUGE effort by the disabilities community to get rid of Paper Ballots. Dodd’s work must be a result of it. Though Holt is criticized (I’ve lost track, he may be Pro Paper).

Oh yeah, HAVA also requires that voting systems assist people that have difficulty with the English language.

Oh, man...

What do we do? :shrug: :cry:


Here's a page with some links to get your jaw dropped with:

<http://www.aapd-dc.org/dvpmain/paperballot/paperballots.html>


This one particularly disappointing. I'm surprised they took the position they have:

<http://www.aapd-dc.org/dvpmain/paperballot/drevotemachine.html>


If you've heard of Kevin Shelley, of CA, here's his work. Haven't looked closely but he seems to be for Paper Ballots:

A pdf:

<http://www.aapd-dc.org/dvpmain/paperballot/downloads/CA%20Sec%20of%20State%20Taskforce%20report.pdf>


And, so, he gets slammed for it:

<http://www.aapd-dc.org/dvpmain/paperballot/kevinshelly.html>


Here's Census Data for the number of folk w/Disabilities, though I don't know how many need assistive voting systems.

<http://www.aapd-dc.org/dvpmain/elreform/census.html>


Comments? Suggestions? Perhaps a gun for self-inflicted-wound generation?

...though the counting probably is better done by a party that isn't local to the precinct.

Some of us would rather a paper record.

handwriting --> voice
ink --> traces left on a "fresh tape" versus a second-pass recording

One second of analogue tape contains at bare minimum 65 thousand bits worth of information (though it is hard to put a number on it because it isn't stored in bits.)

That's a whole lot more, in a much harder to alter form, than the 100 or so bits needed to represent a digital "ballot".

May have dismissed it too soon over my concern with the mechanics of the tape transport.

An audio recording, good enough for speech/verification, would not need a lot of "bits", so to speak. ie: A small reel of tape could hold a lot of "yes" and "no" entries.

But I'm really starting from scratch, not sooner having realized jack about this whole issue.

Was reminded while reading this excellent tome.

Highly recommended.

MythBreakers:

It's pdf.

<http://www.votersunite.org/MB2.pdf>

...just the disabled. Yes, you can wipe a tape out with magnetic fields. Would you go through the trouble of arranging to do this within the time it takes the BOE to transcribe the votes to a paper ballot? Especially since the people that are supposed to do so, necessarily a panel with representatives of each party, would definitely notice?

Seems like more risk than it is worth.

Fire can ruin paper. How many ballot boxes accidentally got burned?

Now, for all this to work, we're talking about an analog signal through the entire chain. Correct?

No digitization, cause that means software, which could be programed to take the voters "Yes" and drop it in the bad guys slot. Right?

You get a tape cassette and a reasonably private booth. This cassette is your temporary ballot. You listen to a recording in the booth, which is recorded along with your voice on the tape. The recording states the races and candidates and allows you to say their names, or a corresponding number. You can pause the recording or rewind it as needed. Your last answer is final word.

You give the cassette to the poll workers, who record it as a "ballot cast" in the local logbook. The cassettes are sent to a district office (not good for ballots in general, but reasonable in this case) where people won't recognize your voice. There a panel listens to the tapes and fills out paper ballots accordingly. The results are given to the town clerks who report them to the SoS, and substitute ballots are returned to be kept in the records file alongside other ballots.

Yes, it would take a while to count these, but there aren't enough of them that "streamlining" the process is worth the effort. In general, a lot of the problems with a lot of systems, both election oriented and not, both in government and business, is that they have been over-optimized. An extremely small gain in the ease of doing something is paid for with far more labor in technical support and nuance. Frankly, our election resembles one of those contraptions from "Wallace and Grommet."

But your right. They aren't the guys to design voting systems.

Skids, could you search out the audio-type "polling equipment" currently used and compare it to your concept.

This might be something...Survey of election reporting formats:

<http://uscvprogs.sourceforge.net/boefmts.html>


You know, they hung printers on DRE's. Let them hang cassette transports on those units for the visually-impaired.

The original copy at least. Now it is on SourceForge and anyone is welcome to become a developer and help expand it to include more. They don't have to know how to code, they just need to be an experienced web browser and have an eye for detail that allows them to tell the apples from the oranges and put them in the right baskets. In other words, we could use a few good "power users" to go out and find these things and organize them, so that the coders can concentrate on coding.

Speaking of which, I am a bit too busy coding parsers for the formats listed in that file to really put too much effort into the work to develop new elections standards, so I'll have to take a pass on researching audio voting techniques.

But since you seem to be so interested in the topic, here's a tidbit for you from the EIRS vote problem database (I just happened to have it on hand)

029974 Florida Miami Dade Miami Park Elementary - 2004-11-02 05:54:47 PST Machine problem Aduio only provides opportunity to vote for Bush - no other persons offered.

Otherwise I totally got that the busy thing.

And thanks for that Florida tid-bit.

It could be as low as 8 kb.

But you don't want personally identifiable information on a secret ballot anyway! It is therefore inherently hackable.

Suppose it's a voice synthesizer or a prerecorded script that they listen and respond to. How hard would it be to change ALL the Kerry votes on the tape, to Bush votes, even in analog format? You just push the buttons and re-record the whole farkin' ballot tape. And who says it's even analog?

Now if you record each vote using each voter's voice, that might be a little better, but it's not a secret ballot then.

And what if they just say, "to vote Bush press 1, to vote Kerry, press 2?" The bill doesn't specify ANY particular way to do this. It just says "audio ballot."

This is from the letter (link above) from Ted Selker/MIT voting Project to Kevin Shelley/SOS CA. Letter was posted by the AAPD (Am Assoc of People w Disabilities)

WHEW---TALK ABOUT SPIN:
--------------------------------------

"Redundant separately recorded electronic audit trails are in all certified voting machines. Separate audit trails are in fact of value, but handling paper is notoriously unreliable. The idea that computers are not the best tabulating machines of our time is confusing. Banking quality has improved tremendously in the past few decades by computerizing the transactions and audits. Counting paper records by people is error prone. Such recounts have typically taken many tries corroborate computer results and has had to be given up or redone multiple times to be equivalent to computer records.

Separate redundant computer records are in place and can be reliable. I have been led to believe that the DRE-based Brazilian election in 2000 was able to report an unprecedented 99.8% of 106,000,000 votes electronically.

Requiring voting machines to be secure will eliminate fraud. I also agree that mass fraud is of special importance. Observations indicate that anything that complicates voting reduces reliability. The approaches advocated by Dr. Dill and others do complicate the process. The problems of recent elections are almost all caused by complicated local problems.

My major concern is that the people that have been assembled for the California Secretary of State Ad Hoc Touch Screen Task Force do not represent sufficient experience with human-computer interface research or voting administration to make a defendable decision. The danger is to make decisions that will have enormous costs and not improve the voting quality."

------------
The AAPD website also contains a lot of material opposing DREs.

When the battle is raging this hot and heavy pro and con, it would not seem prudent for the Governement(s) to have gone wholesale into DREs.

OBVIOUSLY specialized voting machines for the disabled should be provided by every community --BUT STILL with a paper record. It's also clear from the stats above that the disabled already are already voting in fairly large numbers compared to other voting groups. Of course disabled people should have the best technology available.

is look and see if the Disability groups are getting any funding from the voting machine companies. Then I think...motives will be clear.

I know The National Federation for the Blind has taken money from Diebold...So anything coming from Jim Dixon is taken with a very large grain of salt.

...the disabilities groups have really been an obstacle to preventing this BushCon company takeover of our election system, and I can't think of anything more counter-productive for people with disabilities than having Bushes and BushCons selected into the White House and Congress now and forever more. Their disability money is already in jeopardy, and is bound to be sucked into the Bush Cartel looting of our public treasury sooner rather than later.

...reminds me of the AARP endorsement of the BushCon drug companies' Medicare drug bill... advocacy groups that have grown much too fat and heady with power, and most likely corrupt as hell.

Kevin Shelley is one of the good guys. He not only decertified Diebold machines, and sued them for lying about the security of their machines, he provided Californians with a paper ballot option just before the 2004 election. He's now being attacked by the BushCon/Schwarzenegger west coast energy company protection group, with scurrilous charges of corruption and sexual harassment that are being blasted all over the corrupt news media. It's really sickening.

From the AAPD Policy Statement on their website:

"The clique of VVPB supporters disputes the fact that touch screen voting machines are safe, secure, and reliable. They theorize that it is likely that computerized voting systems will accidentally miscount the ballots or that a rogue programmer will steal an election. Therefore, every touch screen must be attached to a printer and give the voter a paper ballot. If implemented in state initiatives, VVPB will violate the letter and spirit of HAVA by once again denying people with disabilities their right to a secret and independent vote. Not only will the rights of people with disabilities be stripped, but the costs of local elections will rise significantly with no promise or guarantee of future federal funding to absorb these new costs."

WHEW--how do you counter this argument?? It would take an essay.

What I'm more interested in is IF there's any way to present our side to Conyers. Judging by the draft of his comprehensive voting bill we saw yesterday, DREs are a forgone conclusion, with the argument that ALL voting machines must be accessible to the disabled, at great cost and risk to the rest of the voting public.

Is there NO stopping these DREs even in the face of their obvious huge flaws in these last elections?

But it seems we really need to get to Dodd/Conyers. Problem is I'm not sure they'll have ears for us.

They may blow us off, but seems to me we do need to try to be heard. (Where are our paid lobbyists...they didnt show up for work today). What would get through. It's like they don't even want to HEAR objections to DREs. How can we approach them respectfully...before it is set in stone...

Well we are back home because we were working for free. If you want to help the effort to stop this crap donate via paypal to
Caseamerica@hotmail.com

referring to us working for free:)

lobbying for reforms. I was in essence working for free.

and very much appreciate your work.

Question--have you read the updated version of "Mythbreakers" from Votesunite.org? Posted today? 70 pages
http://www.votersunite.org/MB2.pdf

This updated version is really excellent--I was wondering if you can find out if Conyers office has read it and how they square this with their position on mandating e-voting for everyone--in the draft of the bill in question?

A good idea?

a Duer.

Jim Dickson, lobbyist for the American Association of People with Disabilities. Look for Diebold connection. That's all I know.

I have contacts in the disability rights movement I can talk to for more info, but probably won't get to it today.

In November 2000, Diebold agreed to pay the National Federation of the Blind $1 million over five years to help build a new research and training institute. The money was offered in exchange for the NFB agreeing to drop a lawsuit it filed against Diebold for installing ATMs inaccessible to blind customers, when technology for making the machines accessible was available. The NFB also formed a partnership with Diebold to help the company develop and market accessible ATM machines

Then what happened? Well NFB started suing banks for not providing acessible ATM's. Take a guess at which brand was chosen most by the banks. In March 2001, the president of the Vermont affiliate of the NFB initiated a lawsuit against Banknorth, Chittenden Bank, Northfield Savings Bank and the Vermont State Employees Credit Union for installing inaccessible ATMs. A year later Banknorth settled and agreed to install accessible ATMs at 470 locations in six states. Other banks settled as well.

In 2002, five visually impaired voters sued Maryland to force the state to buy accessible voting machines more quickly than it thought wise, and the NFB joined the suit six months later. Maryland now uses Diebold machines statewide, except in one county. Then the NFB switched sides to defend the Maryland Board of Elections in a different suit filed by voting activists who challenged the legality and integrity of the Diebold systems. Although in lawsuits the NFB never specified which brand of touch-screen machines states and counties should purchase, the group has made no secret of its preference.

with the suit filed by the voting activists vs BOE in Maryland?

AFAIK

FOOD POISONING.

Sorry.

What should we do...or not do?

And what about the machine you mentioned that would accommodate the blind, yet make us Paper People happy?

Unfortunately some will call me a luddite...disregarding the fact I have 3 networked computers a a PDA and love gadgets. Computer have their place and I LOVE technology. Just not for voting.

Especially not for e-voting.

Andy,
I would be the last to call you a luddite, especially after I couldn't do the simplest thing with my phone and you took care of it. :-)

It was disheartening to look at AAPD's site and to see the strong stance against VVPB being taken there.

Adaptive technology has greatly enhanced the lives of people with disabilities. It is so important to be able to operate independently and to be able to participate in gatherings, events and public processes.
Fm listening systems help some people who are hard of hearing to attend and enjoy theater and clearly discer lectures in the classroom.
Screenreaders assist people who are blind, have visual impairment and some of those with certain learning disabilities to freely access the internet and their email.
TTS (text to speech) programs have greatly increased access to books since people can independently scan a book, a magazine or a document and the program will read the text aloud.
Alternative Input hardware and software help people with motor impairments gain the same access to computers that the rest of us take for granted.

The disabled community has had to fight hard for inclusion and independence. The access achieved through adaptive tech has been a boon to the community, so it makes sense that the same type of technology would be seen as the best means to have equal access to voting.

We have so many creative, passionate, hardworking people that I have to believe that we can look through the options, find solutions that will be inclusive, promote independence and be accountable and verifiable. Andy, especially after meeting you in DC, I certainly count you as one of those people.
There were some links on the AAPD site that could help us in finding a solution.
One is this article, which speaks to issues people with disabilities face in trying to vote:
http://www.aapd.com/dvpmain/pollaccess/ignoredgroup.html
By becoming more familiar with the obstacles this community has faced, we might be able to assist with solutions.
Another is taking a closer look and deciding if we can advocate for some of the options linked to from this article:
http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=1875

One is the Rhode Island system you mentioned:
http://www.electionaccess.org/Bp/Ballot_Templates.htm

Surely, there must be a way that we can all come together, find something feasible and equitable for all and make this work.

He's the lynchpin. What we need is other blind and disability organizations on our side. Does anyone have any high level contacts with any of them?

They're saying it's mismanagement of Fed. election funds, but something about that is not quite right.

Look to Lockyear for the answers.

This past spring in California, Diebold systems malfunctioned in two counties, disenfranchising thousands of voters. Secretary of State Kevin Shelley discovered that the voting systems in seventeen counties in the state had not been certified, as required by law. After two days of tumultuous hearings in Sacramento, during which high-level election officials called the company's behavior "despicable" and accused its officials of lying, Shelley prohibited the use of Diebold's systems in four counties, the first time this has happened in the United States. Shelley, who has said to the Los Angeles Times that he doesn't want to be "the Katherine Harris of the West Coast," also made the certification of voting systems in ten more counties dependent on their adoption of twenty-three security improvements that he specified. One of these requires those counties to let citizens vote on paper if they want to, but Shelley flinched at requiring a DRE paper trail this year. Four counties and advocates of the disabled sued Shelley to block his actions, but a federal judge ruled he had the authority and had used it reasonably.

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040816&s=dugger
How they could steal the election this time, by Ronnie Dugger

In a nutshell, the industry is mostly (totally) just using the disabled community.

You should also research ITAA. There is (or was) an ITAA Exec Newsletter online that described some of the early lobbying efforts, demos to Congress, etc. Add to that the telephone conference call that David Allen of Plan 9 Plublishing sat in on where ITAA admitted that HAVA was just a way to get Congress to pay for a lot of voting machines.

It's a wonderful wedge issue and of course a trojan horse: if the Dems complain about lack of accountability with touchscreens, they're bad and evil, meanwhile the voting machine companies can do all sorts of damage under the aegis of "helping" the disabled community. Sooo fucking clever these people are.

Oh, there was also money that went to one or more groups from the industry -- I think the loudest and noisiest "spokesman" for the blind was the recipient (or his organization) of some "donations," and I think the League of Women Voters was too. The League has sinced moderated their stance but they were VERY anti-paper at one point -- that's another way they used this "wedge issue" against us, by lining up very vocal and powerful liberal-leaning organizations to push for what they wanted.

There's quite a bit to look at, so get busy. :evilgrin: Your instincts are superb.

In this thread:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x314989>

Wilms and I suggested a few things to get around all this. I'm not sure we agreed on all of them but here they are:

1. Do NOT allow anyone capable of using a VVPB to vote on the Multimedia DREs, or whatever they will be called. Such individuals shall not be considered to be disabled for the purpose of this legislation. Allowing them to use these machines is like letting anyone park in a "handicapped" spot! Of course the bill will have to be changed to reflect this definition, but the idea of NOT being able to tell who can use paper, and who can't is wrong. It's easy: if they can sign a poll book without assistance, they must use a VVPB. If not, they are considered disabled and are offered the other options. They will have their own machines, with shorter lines, etc.

2. Equip all machines with PB capability including the multimedia ones, and make the PB the ballot of record. Audit the multimedia ballots to be sure they match the paper and at that point, the paper becomes the ballot of record for recounts.

3. Count all ballot formats as cast, but in the event of a recount, just use the paper, which has already been verified in item 2 above, to match the multimedia.

Now, if we can get this language, or something similar into Conyers and Dodd's bill, it won't matter if they buy these DREs. They only need one per polling place - not one per precinct too, as I understand it, right?

The rest of the election can be Op Scan or hand counted paper.

This way, we re-frame the entire debate. It's no longer about the rights of the disabled, because they're getting what they're asking for -- in fact, they are getting preferential treatment (not that there's anything wrong with that!). But the debate becomes how to verify ALL the votes, including theirs! And theirs will be 100% audited, so they will actually be the most fraud-proof.

Comments?

1. If I understand the spirit of the American's with Disabilities Act (let alone HAVA) the idea is that facilities should be available. Period. The idea is that the voter doesn't have to tell/prove that they have a vision problem, or that they can't read, etc. Requiring "Proof" could be a deal killer for us.

But I think we're OK, because...

a.This doesn't mean every machine needs to be specialized. HAVA, I think, mandates only one provided at each precinct (I'd say two, for back-up).

b. A lot of people might fake disabilities for all kinds of reasons. They might fake at the poll because the MMM line is shorter or something. (But then, all lines would equalize in length, and that's fair, too.) So again, if we don't touch that, I'm thinking it will not be a problem.

c. Most people using the Multi-Media Machine (MMM)would probably select "Paper Ballot (PB) Only" not "Cyber-Morphable Digits" (CMD) for Voter's Verification.

2. No. The Voter's choice of Verification is the one of record!!! It's what they want, it's in the law. Yes. Audit the CMD against the PB's. Then, it wouldn't surprise me if you could make the proposed Required PB (RPB) the one of record for recounts...especially if there was some kind of audit/recount to match CMD's to the RPB's.

3. Here you seem to contradict point #2 and agree with my reply to it, so that might be it.

Let me know what you think.

The reason I contradicted myself is that in case the PBs don't match the other MM stuff in item 2, you need to decide which to use for recounts. If they do match it doesn't matter, so go with the paper for simplicity.

If they don't match, then you know there's been fowl play, so assume that it's the e-stuff that's been altered because the paper is harder to alter. This point is of course arguable because the paper in this case isn't voter-verified. But you can't say, the ballot of record in the event of a discrepancy is paper on one machine and something else on another, can you? Maybe you can, but by requiring the full audit in the first place, you DETER the fraud.

If there is no recount, we'd have to assume the election isn't close enough for this to matter (because the percentage of "disabled" voters will be small if you restrict the use of these machines to those who really need them).

As far as Americans with Disabilities, don't you have to prove you're disabled to park in one of those blue spots? I think you do. You need sticker in fact! I'm not suggesting anything this stringent -- just either sign the book, or go multimedia. You don't want disabled people to have to wait on line because someone who doesn't NEED their machine wants to use it, do you? Once you let everybody use them, there's no guarantee they will choose paper. Remember, this bill also says "electronic or other". WTF does that mean? It's open wider than a barn door! The ballot could be in the ether somewhere.

You pose questions, then answer as I would in Para 2.

In Paras. 3/4,

a. restricting access, that's a whole separate battle your setting up if I got the law right, and I might not. (WhereTF is Andy??) Have you ever used a public toilet that was ADA compliant? That's allowed. Parking is another thing.

b. See post 39, 1.b

c. The voter gets to choose. That's the spirit of the law. I'm not thrilled, but I think I can live with it, and I pretty sure plenty of people already hit the wall trying to change that.

By adding the RPB to the CMB, and by adding an audit between the two, we get a lot, and take nothing from the AD Community.

I know what you're talking about because of the context, but what do those letters stand for?

I don't like the idea of letting everybody vote without the paper if they want to. It's just something else those who'd want to cheat could exploit. How will John Q. Voter know that his vote can be hacked if he doesn't use the VVPB? Who will do a 100% audit of an unlimited number of paper ballots to see if they match whatever format every voter has chosen? Suppose the DEFAULT on the DRE machines is set to NOT use paper, but the "electronic or other" setting instead? Who will know enough to turn the paper option on? There is no way to enforce this unless you don't give people the option in the first place and don't buy so many of these machines. It will never work otherwise.

I'm sure the bill can be written so that these choices are only offered to the disabled i.e., those who can't use paper. If not, then EVERY machine have to be multimedia, wouldn't it?

HAVA requires a minimum # of MMM, but doesn't prevent their exclusive use. And that that IS scary.

I'd like to be clearer though on the how establishing disability for the purpose of voting vs. HAVA vs.getting Dodd's constituency on-board.

In that other post, I referenced RPB to mean a Required Paper Ballot (the one we proposed printed no matter what) and, trying to be funny, CMB to mean Cyber-Morphable Ballots (the "Electronic options we fear).

simply that rather than fighting the battle for the hearts and minds of the disabled, why don't we just try to influence the legislation in such a way that that they get exactly what they want, but that it can't be exploited to steal an election?

In other words, just think of the multimedia stuff as security threat and find ways to neutralize it.

So see post 42

They have a K Street Address in DC... Are they another K Street lobbying firm -- cashing in on "civil rights"?

Congressional Research Service - The Library of Congress
CRS Report for Congress

Election Reform and Electronic Voting Systems (DREs):
Analysis of Security Issues


I posted it here, with some excerpts:

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x319070>


Interesting report that isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of DRE's, though it does bend over backwards to cut them a liittle slack.

Poorly tranferred to a pdf format, footnotes meant to be placed at the bottom of the page appear in the middle of some paragraphs.

What a pain. But still a good read.

Here's a report review a few different "Multi-Media Machines".

Haven't read it through. Have no idea of the pedigree of the manufacturers. Didn't get the idea it addressed security issues, but be that as it may, we can see what they have to say.

A Report on Disabled Voters’ Experiences

Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields and
The Center for Independence of the Disabled in New York, Inc.

The Center for Independence of the Disabled in New York (CIDNY) and I are pleased to release the following report, Voting Technology for People with Disabilities: A Report on Disabled Voters’ Experiences.

This report analyzes the feedback from people with disabilities who tested voting machines demonstrated at a recent voting technology fair that CIDNY and I hosted.

CIDNY and my office have prepared a list of recommendations that we believe will help New York State election officials, legislators and other decision makers develop and implement a plan that makes voting machines fully accessible to New York voters with all different types of disabilities.

This is a pdf:

<http://www.aapd-dc.org/dvpmain/votemachines/downloads/Manhattan%20voters%20experiences.pdf>

Chads Begone

Electronic voting is coming to Connecticut--
and critics say fraud cant be far behind.

by Alejandra O'Leary - February 3, 2005

If you live in Connecticut, the 2004 elections were the last time you'll ever pull a mechanical lever to vote. In August 2004, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz announced that the state will overhaul its fleet of lever-pull voting machines and replace them with electronic machines by November. The electronic machines will be ready for the 2005 municipal elections in all 769 polling places in Connecticut, paid for with $32.7 million in federal funds granted by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

-snip/more-

The link won't post correctly, so please go to the home page while the link is still on there:

<http://newhavenadvocate.com/gbase/News/index>

While I know there are people with disabilities out there, accomodations can be made but here in NC there are a couple of people pushing that E-Voting machines are the only way people with disabilities will be able to vote...so the rest of us should give up paper ballots and go with the
e-machines. One of these people is very suspect to me.

It's like all the extra parking spaces at malls that are always empty. There's a chance of "overdoing" things when our whole voting system is dependent on People with Disabilities. I don't see how the "Touch Screens" are more effective than having a Poll Worker or Family Member help a person with a disability fill out a ballot. What about a "voice recognition" system so the person could "voice vote?" I would think the "Touch Screens" would be harder to read and harder to work than just a plain pencil or voice recognition. :shrug:

I don't know that managing the needs of the the Disabilities community has to create system wide issues. It just has.

As far as,

"I don't see how the "Touch Screens" are more effective than having a Poll Worker or Family Member help a person with a disability fill out a ballot."

A big part of the idea is privacy for the voter. A reasonable enough request.

a volunteer from a community who works with the disabled? I know if I was disabled but wanted to vote, I think I could find someone who could help me. I know that many Americans "live alone" and are out of contact with their fellow beings these days...but if one is diabled then one must rely to some extent on folks they trust...I would think. :shrug:

and this varies from person to person. I've known lots of people with various disabilities. Some want to be as independent as possible and others want to be helped. I suppose, without over-generalizing, most want to be as independent as possible given the technology and medical advances available to them. Give them a mousetrap they can use and they'll want to catch their own mice. Of course some people are just fond of cats so they'll prefer that route!

We should probably raise this on the DU Disabilities forum. Wilms and I have lurked there a bit. Actually, I bet they'd be happy to discuss it and we shouldn't be putting it off. We shouldn't think of them so much as "them" either, which I'm sure could be part of the problem.

Then we should work on fixing this legislation.

Where is Andy anyway?

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=250x493>

Let's run it up the old flagpole and see who salutes!

I keep hearing that the reason the conyers bill doesn't specifically call for paper ballots, is because of voters with disabilities. Just because of them, every voter, whether disabled or not, will get the option of a paper ballot or not.

I don't get it.

It seems to me, that if the paper ballot is a problem for disabled people, then only they should get the choice.

Furthermore, it seems to me, and I hope this doesn't sound different than what I mean, that most disabled people can still use the paper ballot. If someone is in a wheelchair, deaf, and most things I can think of, they still can use a computer and they still can verify their ballot.

the only exception I know of is for blind people. they may have a real reason to use something other than a verified paper ballot. But even then it could be done with brail ballots.

Even if we agree blind people need to use an audio ballot or something like that, I see no reason why it needs to be opened up to all disabled people, and I certainly don't see why the options need to be offered to everyone, whether disabled or not.

gary

We need to write to Dodd and Conyers after researching this some more.

I think the basic problem here is that there is STILL not much awareness on the part of these legislators of the potential dangers of e-voting.

I'd add that a Paper Ballot should ALWAYS be generated, even when the Voter's choice is different.

As far as Braille goes, I've read it's a small % of the blind that can use it. So we may not get too much mileage there.

edit sp