Voting Opportunities and Mechanics

[jesse_the_k]

There are many things we can do to improve everyone's lives. Voting is not the only thing, but it sure is hell is easy to do. Many have given their health, their peace of mind, and their lives for the right to exercise the franchise. If you're a U.S.an, head on down to the polls in your municipality this coming Tuesday. And while you're there, you might be wondering, "Gee, just how do people with disabilities vote?" As it happens, I know a little about this.

Photo ID: laptop size plastic machine with letter-size screen. Woman using powerchair, wearing purple hat and favorite purple jacket feeds ballot into slot below screen.

One decent result from the G.W.Bush administration was that the voting process must be independently accessible to people with disabilities. Now I can get in, it seemed like a good year to volunteer as a poll worker. I went to the "new election official" training today.

Up front:

1. I wasn't expecting this to happen, so I wasn't taking verbatim notes. I could not swear to any of the following in court; as far as the essential drift, I do believe I'm correct and I heard Elena acknowledge this.

2. I am not hosting a discussion of the political or technical validity/vulnerability of voting machines. (For the record, I support 3b; it works for us in Wisconsin, which used to be an exemplar of clean politics.)

When our trainer, Elena, finished walking us through the various elements of a correctly marked ballot, I raised my hand and said, "And then there's another way to mark the ballot, right, with the accessible voting machine?" Her response was
a) non-verbal eye-roll (I interpreted this as 'yipes, why did she bring this up?')
b) Yes, that's right. The accessible voting machine is challenging and we'll get to that later.

3. Since she never did a decent job, let me tell you a bit about accessible voting. There are two approaches to an accessible voting machine:

a) everybody votes using a machine. then

Make at least one of them work with magnifying software and speech output and single-switch control and the almost-infinite list of assistive tech which we could use to make a mark.

OR

b) everybody marks a paper ballot, then feeds the marked ballot into a vote counter, which is a slightly smart scanner.

Typical people have the ballot-marking tools at the end of their palms. The rest of us have an accessible machine as above in #3a.

OK, back to the end of my training session, where I noted she had never gotten back to the voting machine.

She said the accessible voting machine is very important and everyone must have one working at each polling place. She said they could be used by someone who's blind, or someone who has low vision, or can't read for any reason, or really just anybody who wants to. She also said that they were very fussy mechanically, so they may not work as well as you'd like.

Another student asked what poll workers should do if they thought a voter was being unduly influenced in filling out a ballot. The student said, "This happened around 6 years ago, when someone who, well, frankly, he was just not cognizant enough to be voting. And the person with them was filling out the ballot for them." I said that this could be a good option to use the accessible machine: somebody who can't read could be able to understand the speech.

(FWIW, the "Six years ago this retarded person was influenced in their vote" is a perennial election year rumor. Neurotypical people are quick to define the minimum IQ they'd set for voting, without exploring the profound mismatch between IQ and ability. Absolutely every social justice activist would do well to read Gould's The Mismeasure of Man.)

After the training wrapped up, I said I was disappointed in her presentation of the voting machine. She reiterated they were frustrating and difficult to use. Didn't I realize, she asked, that most poll workers are over 60 and they are not going to be able to understand this computer? (Reality check: Elena is probably between 25-30; 90% of the people in the training were under 55; in all regards it looked a lot like Madison, which made me happy about my city.)

I asked if that meant my rights as a voter were also frustrating her? How would she feel if I said that permitting her to vote was too difficult? The penny dropped, and she began to apologize for "not presenting in the most effective manner."

I poked my State-level disability rights public-interest lawyer on my willingness to be a secret shopper. Wisconsin recently settled a suit on this issue -- damn, sometimes it takes a blow to the head to teach folks!

(How do I know it's her favorite jacket? I modeled for the photo.)

Comments

[rhivolution]

A very excellent post--I was wondering about this in Wisconsin after amadi's poll, and I can't really go look in person. I hope you DO get to secret shop.

[jesse_the_k]

Ooh, thanks for that mention -- what a great poll. Maybe we should come up with a poll about an automatic poll generator?

[branchandroot]

I gotta say, one reason I'm glad to live in Ohio is that you don't have to give a reason for wanting an absentee ballot and voting by mail in your own sweet time. With time to look up the really poorly worded Issues to find out wtf. Poll voting was always a trial, even when I wasn't operating at a spoon deficit.

[jesse_the_k]

Now I enjoy waving the flag on poll day, but perhaps that's because my mom would carried me along. The nonsense I'm reading about have to "prove" one's worthiness of absentee ballot is totally busted.

Are there any nations who are all-mail, all the time? Australia? Somewhere in the sensible & idealistic North?

[littlebutfierce]

Great post! (& yay for favorite purple items of clothing!)

Just one note:

If you're a U.S.an, head on down to the polls in your municipality this coming Tuesday

*cough* If you're a USian & are able to vote: are a citizen, are not one of the formerly/currently incarcerated felons that are disfranchised in many states, didn't miss the registration deadline (I know! You people in Wisconsin* are one of the lucky few states to have election day registration, sob), etc.

< / former election reform policy wonk of sorts>

* I totally started spelling that "WisConsin."

[jesse_the_k]

Thank you for putting me right on the morally bankrupt long list of disenfranchised U.S.ans. Several people in the training clearly knew the details, saying that we had to check the voter's "separation date" against the "ineligible voters" list.

Damn, if we could only focus that much attention on prison prevention!

(I have a macro which ups the case in WisCon after I press word boundary. Otherwise I'd just lose it):

[hypatia]

as a canadian, the whole "registration deadline" thing weirds me out. i think i've been on a voter's list accurately twice out of the dozen or so elections i've voted in in 8 years, and i've always just registered at the polls.

making people register in advance strikes me as such a ridiculously high barrier to anyone who's even slightly disorganized :/

thanks for this post, jesse_the_k.

[jesse_the_k]

Perhaps an inheritance of an election system based on agrarian small-holdings?

[littlebutfierce]

Nooooo, you have to have registration in advance! Otherwise the blacks the illegals welfare cheats young people out for LOLs THOSE PEOPLE will vote commit voter fraud & make a mockery of Democracy!!!!!1

[isis]

I am an American (this is what people from the US are properly called, and the nationality designation I very strongly prefer), and I am also an election judge (what poll workers are called in Colorado), and I am happy to report that our training covered accessible voting in detail, with lots of explanation. The Election Judge Handbook for my county has nearly three pages on providing unencumbered voter access to voters with disabilities, from practical items (such as ensuring a 36" wide travel path and 60" turning space for wheelchairs) to etiquette (such as not assuming that what works for one person will also work for another with the same disability).

Colorado is a state that allows absentee voting for any reason at all, too.

[jesse_the_k]

I am so glad to hear of it. May the Coloradan heights elevate the rest of the nation!

[redbird]

Well done; yes, it would be better if you hadn't had to educate the trainer, but as far as I can tell from here, you did it well.

[zizi_west]

Very interesting post. You make a good point about the introduction of technology and the average age of poll workers/volunteers. My area changed to vote-by-mail only, and I miss seeing the regular poll workers who I used to chat with each election day. Nearly all were over 60, a few probably 70+. It was a friendly group of mostly older African -American ladies, who usually had what seemed to be a magical self-refilling table of cookies and cake nearby.

RE: "retarded people voting": hope I don't hijack the thread with an anecdote.

I first saw an electronic voting machine designed for accessibility some years ago when I volunteered through a local AFL-CIO (though I'm not a member) chapter as a poll worker. It was a completely different model -- this one, the Diebold Election Systems, Inc. model AccuVote-TSx DRE voting machine with VVPAT attachment. Curious people looked at the machine but only a few were willing to use it, despite the poll workers' offers of a quick tutorial.

The polling station became so busy that the poll workers & volunteers soon felt understaffed, because they came over the spot where I was trying to stay 10 feet away from the voting area and asked if I would help a young man with his voters guide and ballot. He was literate but his mother, who was with him, said that he was slightly developmentally disabled. Some of the descriptions of ballot initiatives were worded so cryptically that he had asked if someone could talk through the guide with him.

Although I'd cast my own vote earlier in the day, I felt very uneasy about doing it because I was not a poll worker, just an observer -- I was wearing a big day-glo yellow vest emblazoned with AFL-CIO and had documentation explaining my presence there, which I was required to show to anyone with concerns. I did not want to influence this young man in any way or be accused of doing so. He had made the effort to come and vote, so I tried to help, summarizing the text in each initiative section and then repeating, "You decide what you think is best." He had already made decisions regarding candidates, it was the initiatives that prompted questions.

He listened & asked questions, and appeared to understand what we were talking about. Obviously, I could have been all wrong because I didn't know him. I did wonder why his mother hadn't gone over the Voter's Guide with him before they came to the polling station, as many (most?) people do. He chose to use a paper ballot instead of the voting machine.

It was awkward, but the guilt about preventing someone from voting would have been a heavy psychological burden indeed. I have a parent who was a member of CORE -- in our family we believe in voting!

The Mismeasure of Man is a must-read, I agree. I admire Gould & heard him lecture many years ago, several years before his death.

[jesse_the_k]

Election stories are always on-topic. I hope one happy side-effect of this poll-worker training will be improving my longevity: at my ward the same folks have been working for thirty years!

Indeed, we were sternly cautioned that election day observers must be kept 10 feet away from the spot where people fill out their ballots. Seems like some polling places are so small that there aren't 10 feet to maintain, but I'll keep my fingers crossed that they're all as well-mannered as yourself.

On election day in a mail-in municipality, is there no rally point for photo ops and brass bands? What little I've seen of former Commonwealth electioneering has been principally through the double lens of fiction, but it seems like there's a lot more showing the colors, so to speak.

[zizi_west]

The loss of rallying activities is a real loss, in my opinion. Never saw any brass bands around here but Election Day had a festive feeling, and I liked wearing my little "I Voted" sticker. I suppose many people supported mail-in voting because it was convenient, but I miss the polling place experience. It was not an inconvenience to get up early or extend my day because I enjoyed the feeling of participating in something. Kind of a holdiay with all the businesses staying open.

That is a nice looking purple jacket & it goes well with the hat btw.

[sophygurl]

Don't you know we uppity gimps are just too frustrating to accommodate?? Sheesh! /snark

Sometimes I wanna be you when I grow up. :)

[jesse_the_k]

*Aw* blush ♥

[jadelennox]

during the primaries my hands were in such a bad flareup I couldn't hold the pen, and I asked the poll workers what I was supposed to do. They stared at me blankly. I said, what happens now, does somebody mark the ballot for me? Luckily I had a friend with me, but I shouldn't have had to let my friend know how I was voting.

What ARE the options for people who can't mark? Are their voice options?

[jesse_the_k]

Don't know re: our particular machine, but thanks for reminding me to find out before the election!

Often the multi-impairment software was designed by the TRACE Center here at UW-Madison, which specializes in generalizing assistive technology. (A nice paradox, yes?) This software usually includes "single switch scanning."

As you know, Jade, a scanning input or output device methodically runs through a group of choices. When the desired choice appears, the user trips one switch (by toe push or eyebrow raise or elbow shove or nose wrinkle or straw sipping or many other ways. That choice may be the final result, or may in turn begin the scanning of another menu.

[jesse_the_k]

Checked in on our particular machinery, and they have a touch screen system. Unfortunately, their online manuals don't make it clear whether the touch sensors require human skin or not. Since you have hand/wrist issues, it might not be possible for you to get skin to a screen; if the UI is more forgiving, you could use a quad cuff + a pencil or a mouthstick to make your choices.

[heyfoureyes]

After the training wrapped up, I said I was disappointed in her presentation of the voting machine. She reiterated they were frustrating and difficult to use. Didn't I realize, she asked, that most poll workers are over 60 and they are not going to be able to understand this computer?

a)If the poll workers are really unfamiliar with technology, then that means MORE of the technology should have been covered in the orientation. Not LESS because it is hard to understand.

b) I know some programmers who work at the polls as volunteers. So not every volunteer is someone who is unfamiliar with computers. Some of the programmers I know are in fact over 60, so she's off in many cases.

[jesse_the_k]

Indeed — two good points, which I incorporated in my "grown up" version which appeared over on the http://disabledfeminists.com blog.

[antarcticlust]

Thank you for this post! It was most informative. I suspect that the technology-savvyness of poll workers will vary by district (my low-income neighborhood has mostly senior citizens working the polls - I wouldn't be surprised if most of them were not routine computer users), but this is an argument for training, not against it!

[jesse_the_k]

You're most welcome. Having this outlet for some of my rage is definitely keeping my stomach lining happy (yeah, bacteria, I know :,))

I do think there's some stereotyping going the other way. I'm usually at my local library for an hour or two every day, and there are plenty of tech-savvy poor people queued up for the no-cost public-access PCs (with net access, MS Office and CD drives). Each person is limited to two 75-minute sessions.

[luzula]

Oh, this was interesting! I didn't even know that you use machines when voting. (And yes, I see your number 3, and I am not out to argue for or against, because I know nothing about them.)

In the Swedish elections, you choose a piece of paper that represents the party you want, and if you like, you can make a mark by the candidate you prefer (if you don't, you're voting for the party's own ranking of the candidates). And then you put the paper in an envelope. There are screens behind which you can do it in private, and then you hand in the envelope to the poll workers, who cross you off the list and put the envelopes in a box while you're watching. I assume the poll workers will help you if you're disabled, but I don't actually know how it would work.

You can also vote by mail during a month or so beforehand, and you don't have to register or anything--I mean, the state already knows who is a citizen and who isn't.

[jesse_the_k]

The coded slips of paper is very elegant — and totally new to me.

In our training it was emphasized several times that "we were not identifying the voter," merely confirming their address. There's a distinction without a difference, and probably a Supreme Court case, underlying those words.