Since no one noticed: What kind of electronic machine do you blow into?

one article I posted in 11/29 election news thread:

on edit: election machine that is.

http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/051129/voting.shtml

Alabama

"They would vote by voice or some other touching type method or by blowing into the machine," Day said. "They would put on a headset and the computerized machine would give them instructions on how to cast their ballot. It's pretty complicated."

on edit my comment:
"What the heck is "blowing into a machine" ?

to introduce a puff device for wheel chair people. Others say that they can do the same thing as well. The problem with a public puff device is that it is highly dangerous as far as viruses go. Even with fresh mouth pieces, the tube is not completely replaced. Pretty gross stuff.

independently. This is what HAVA is supposed to be all about.

Instead, it's been perverted by the media, the vendors and the election privatization movement into a f#^%ing touch screen Frankenstein!

should have gotten input from that community to get a census on something better than blowing into a machine.

was all i heard at every disabled convetion. Tongue switch could actually be used by chin instead of tongue. More sanitary.

ADA requirements aren't met by a single general-purpose solution. For what it's worth, the option of blowing into a tube is a pretty popular one with the disabled community... it's a standard sort of interface for people with a particular class of disability.

People with poor vision might want large-type, or special colors (e.g. for color blind people). You wouldn't necessarily make them listen to audio, for example.

Blind voters typically want an audio interface with buttons or a joystick for navigation and selection. Some might want a Braille option, but most don't (most blind people don't read Braille). Either way, you probably wouldn't make them blow into a tube just because they can't see.

Voters who can't use their hands might want an option like what you describe, i.e. some kind of stylus or something they can hold with their mouth. Audio's not necessary or especially useful for those people because they can see the ballot. The keypad or joystick for the audio interface doesn't work for them because they can't use their hands.

Voters who lack enough motor control for the mouth-operated stylus might want something like the sip-and-puff interface to cast their ballot. Audio or a stylus does them no good.

Voters who lack motor control or are completely paralyzed and who have to breathe via a full-time ventilator might want some kind of interface that's controlled by blinking or eye movements. Sip and puff won't work for them because of the ventilator.

Voters who are completely paralyzed, hooked up to a ventilator and lacking functional eyes due to congenital defect, hunting accident or otherwise might want some kind of interface that monitors brain activity instead.

Obviously the examples listed are getting progressively more extreme for illustrative effect. The point is that there's no "one true solution" to meet all ADA requirements, and it's tricky to build a single system that's independently-usable by everyone regardless of any disabilities they might have. Vendors are typically strong with respect to visually-impaired voters and voters who can hold and operate a stylus with their mouth. Hart has a sip-and-puff interface but I haven't seen one from any other vendors. There are a couple of vendors who claim one's in development. I haven't seen anyone who offered the retinal option or the brainwave-interface, so even with the sip-and-puff option there's a (presumably small) class of voters who will still be unable to vote independently on one of the machines.

Neil

How do you audit the count?

Let's say a blind voter uses audio. So an audio ballot is generated and the choices are recorded. Whether the record is audio or some other form such as a ballot image, it has to be recountable independently of the machines. Any electronic solution would NOT be independently audible, or if it were, at a minimum, the schematics and the software would have to be open source to prove it.

Paper seems a reasonable option for independent auditing, but the blind voter can't directly verify what's on the paper.

Now unless I've had my head in the sand, NO ONE seems to be addressing these issues. We either hear from jerks like Sen. Chris Dodd that say there need to multiple forms of voter verification, or those who correctly demand independent audit capability i.e., hand countable paper ballots. But NO ONE that I've heard has truly addressed the issue of how to have both multiple forms of voter verification AND independent auditing.

I'm open to suggestions, but I'm sorry to say that if blind or disabled voters think that just because THEY can verify their own ballots, the ballots are guaranteed to be counted as cast, they're living in a fool's paradise.

It's also curious to me, and I've had blind people in my family, that such voters would prefer to use a machine with virtually NO checks and balances to cast their vote, rather then seek human assistance from poll workers of both parties where at least a check and balance exists.

What do you think?

they need to use it. Like Neil said, the ADA requirements lend to extensive ways to vote. The automark uses a paper ballot and only marks the ballot. The voting terminal (automark) has various input devices. The disabled voter can go to the machine, insert the paper ballot and plug in his or her's sip/puff device and vote. After they are done voting, they can put the ballot back in and the terminal tells them how they have voted, (visually, audibly). They then take it to the ballot box. here is a link to their product.

http://www.essvote.com/HTML/products/automark.html


I hope this helps.

But some disabled voters complain that they still have to carry the ballot from the marker to the scanner, and they can't do that.

The nice thing about it is that even though it's programmed and hence subject to tampering, it doesn't count the ballots, it only marks them.

Only a blind voter would have trouble reading the paper ballot once marked. Unless the Automark knows the voter is blind, it would have to be an honest machine, because some voters will see that their ballot was marked wrong. I like that.

Overall, a device such as this is probably the best overall solution. The ballots it produces can even be hand counted.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Auditing the count is an entirely separate issue.

I described the problem of implementing a single voting machine user interface that would accommodate all voters and make it possible for them to cast their vote independently, regardless of their disability. I contend that it's not actually feasible: the best you can realistically hope for is to accommodate as wide a group as possible, and we should expect vendors to do exactly that. Thus I think it's reasonable to ask vendors to supply an audio interface for blind voters, and a sip-and-puff interface for voters who lack the necessary motor control for a mouth-held stylus. On the other hand, I don't think it's reasonable to expect the same voting machine to incorporate an ocular scanner or a brain-activity monitor to accommodate voters who can't use the sip-and-puff. Unfortunately that means there's probably someone who can't use the system unassisted. But I don't know what to do about that... there's no alternative system available that would let those voters vote independently.

As to your example above, I don't know of any system that actually creates an actual audio record of the voter's choices. All the systems I'm familiar with record the voter's choices as an electronic record. Diebold and Sequoia also offer units that print a paper record in addition to the electronic record (the printer units are optional in both cases). Neither company offers an option that lets a blind voter independently verify the paper record -- that's not possible since blind voters can't see what's on the paper. There were originally requirements proposed by California that required independent playback of whatever text was sent to the printer, but those requirements were dropped. Mostly because it's not actually a great solution: you'd end up with some kind of robotic speak-and-spell device. Quality would be extremely low (bear in mind that playback would be handled by an independent piece of hardware interposed between the voting machine and the printer, and not by a sophisticated computer), pronunciation of names would be frequently garbled and handling of non-English languages would be impossible. You also have the problem of who does the playback software -- the main point of the voter-verifiable printout is to eliminate the issue of trust (or mistrust) of the equipment manufacturer, so it makes no real sense for the manufacturer to write the code for the speak-and-spell unit. But if the manufacturer doesn't write it, then who will? And who will get it certified and tested? That sort of thing. So anyway, California removed the speak-and-spell requirement and blind voters are currently required to trust that the audio summary of their choices matches what's printed on the paper... at least until new updated standards are put in place to address the issue. I'm not sure what the right solution is to accommodate independent verifiability for everyone, but if I ever think of it I bet I could make a lot of money selling it, lol. :)

Hand-countable paper ballots are independently auditable, as you point out. You just need to pay for that independent auditability in terms of increased labor costs and lower accuracy. Most election officials would probably accept the latter, but the former's a problem given that their operating budgets are small and they can't get enough volunteers as it is. If you can convince some of them otherwise, then great, but it seems like a losing battle.

As to your last point, my impression is that the majority of disabled people want the ability to vote independently, without assistance, just like you or me. They liked the DREs when they first came out because those machines put everyone -- abled and disabled -- on the exact same footing for the first time. Advent of the voter-verified paper trail disrupts that: because it's not a "voter-verifiable" anything for people who can't see, and consequently the equality they enjoyed without the paper trail is gone. Ditto on the automark-style devices as well, for what it's worth: the device prints a nice paper ballot for them, and it's scanned by the same reader, but the blind voter has to take it 100% on faith that what's printed on the paper reflects what they really selected. So there's no equality, and that's a core problem for disability rights advocates. I'm not disabled myself, so this is all mostly just my own understanding of their viewpoint as I've heard it expressed. You'd be better off talking to people in the disabled community to get a better opinion than mine!

Neil

before you vote. Only drunks will be allowed.

What the hell are they voting for? Whether they want a DUI citation or not?