EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Charles H. Crawford
Organization : | N/A
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
Section Comments
Section : | 2.2.7
Page no. : |
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Comment : | I am writing to both thank you for your previous efforts to gain an accessible voting experience for those of us with disabilities and your current effort to secure the full range of voting access and privileges for all people with disabilities irrespective of their restrictions. Thanks so much and let us move forward. I have voted in every election since I was eligible to do so and only within the last two elections was I sure that my votes were cast for candidates for whom I had voted. This is because I never had usable vision for reading the ballots and the voting was not accessible to me save for the last two elections where I had the choices read by the voting machine. I know that others have written eloquent testimony on this topic, however permit me to simply say that there is no comparison to properly express the sheer joy and pride a voter feels knowing what they have done and using the equipment to do it. Yes, combining my intellectual capacity to determine choices and accessible technology to provide the opportunity to take charge of my vote has surely altered my experience of our democracy from observer to participant. There is no greater testimony to the effectiveness of the democratic experience then to actually participate in it! There is so much more that I could say, but I would need many pages and is it not best just to say thanks to those who have believed enough in our democracy to empower all of us to participate? God bless you and God bless the U.S.A.