EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Ann Pimley
Organization : | N/A
Post Date : | 9/28/2005
Section Comments
Section : | 2.2.7.2
Page no. : |
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Comment : | April 18, 2005 Technical Guidelines development committee National Institute of Standards Dear Sirs, I sent in a letter to NIS, EAC, and Access Board the week before last with a historical perspective of voting issues I’ve had using the audible ballot . These suggestions below for the TGDC are based on the experiences of some of my friends and myself. We are all vision impaired/blind voters, and had many issues with the audible ballot on one machine, even after the software was corrected once. MACHINE DESIGN FOR OUTSIDE CASE AND FEATURES Have a removable grid to give tactile indications of the perimeter area of the corners of a touch screen machine. This is especially beneficial if the machine has a touch screen area between two corners. This would aid the vision impaired voter, and those vision impaired voters that have dexterity issues. The tactile buttons on some machines need to have more definition. They could be raised or have a raised outline around the surface of the case in which they are set. The buttons are hard to feel if they are at the surface level, even though they are different shapes. The voter should be able to feel the perimeter of the button, instead of feeling the top surface for the shape. I was worried if I touched the top surface, to feel the shape of the button, that I might accidentally press the button. With a minimal space between the case and the buttons, it is hard to tell their shape. They should have a different texture than the surrounding surface of the case. If they are not too sensitive, to rub your fingers over their surface, then the different texture might be enough to use to tell their shape. Basic Braille (not contracted) should be a secondary means of identifying the buttons. Only approximately 10% of all blind adults read Braille.