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Voting the Final Frontier
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010 06:25 pmI'm posting this before the polls close so that the results of the election don't contaminate my gratification with the grass-roots level of the election process.
My day was really upbeat. Where I worked in the AM, I insisted we test the MarkSense (pictured in my previous) Accessible Ballot Marking Device. As the trainer had feared, it didn’t operate. Our chief contacted someone from the City Clerk’s office, who tapped it, thumped it, and sent some test ballots through a few times and it worked (although glacially slowly). At that point I gave an impromptu training to all the poll workers: here’s why we have a machine, it can substitute for the eye to hand system or the brain to hand system. Here are the sort of things the machine can enable. If someone wants to use the machine, don’t be a gatekeeper. My fellow poll workers seemed eager to know more!
When I finished my shift I went back to my home to cast my own ballot, and used the MarkSense there. It operated fine; the design and function of the large print output, however, is abysmal. It comes in one large print size, around 18 points. Although it’s a full color display, its warnings are shown with black & white flashing, so rapid as to induce migraine (or perhaps a seizure, that was some nasty brightness). So I closed my eyes and used the audio interface.
No access problems at either polling place (although the student ward where I worked has a very high level of ambient sound, which I would never tolerate for more than a couple hours).
My day was really upbeat. Where I worked in the AM, I insisted we test the MarkSense (pictured in my previous) Accessible Ballot Marking Device. As the trainer had feared, it didn’t operate. Our chief contacted someone from the City Clerk’s office, who tapped it, thumped it, and sent some test ballots through a few times and it worked (although glacially slowly). At that point I gave an impromptu training to all the poll workers: here’s why we have a machine, it can substitute for the eye to hand system or the brain to hand system. Here are the sort of things the machine can enable. If someone wants to use the machine, don’t be a gatekeeper. My fellow poll workers seemed eager to know more!
When I finished my shift I went back to my home to cast my own ballot, and used the MarkSense there. It operated fine; the design and function of the large print output, however, is abysmal. It comes in one large print size, around 18 points. Although it’s a full color display, its warnings are shown with black & white flashing, so rapid as to induce migraine (or perhaps a seizure, that was some nasty brightness). So I closed my eyes and used the audio interface.
No access problems at either polling place (although the student ward where I worked has a very high level of ambient sound, which I would never tolerate for more than a couple hours).
