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 : | AUDIBLE BALLOT The instructions should be clear and understandable. There also needs to be consistency in language or terms. For instance, it should say to go to the next contest, or to hear the next contest. Not to vote on the next contest, and then later use the word “to vote” when you are actually voting for a candidate or issue. Using vote to mean two different functions is confusing. There should be systematic instructions, instead a big list of instructions that the voters have to listen to and try to memorize. One audio ballot I used did not say the button to push to go to the next contest. You had to press the help button to find out. The voter should be able to press a touch pad or key before the step by step instructions are completely read. The voter who has the functions memorized shouldn’t have to wait for the instructions to be completely read. There should be a context sensitive help button and it should not have any instructions that are not pertinent to the current step the voter is on. The instructions need to be logical and pertinent. One machine, after reading the first contest President of the United States, said you have not voted for this office. It should have told you what step to take to read the list of candidates. Yes, it was true that you hadn’t voted for the contest yet, but why tell the voter so and confuse them when they hadn’t even heard the list of candidates or had a chance to vote. The functions of the touch screen areas need to be consistent. On one machine the area for voting was the same for the first and last contest, but the rest of the contests had different areas to press for the same voting function. If there are not enough areas (four corners) for the functions needed, they should use the areas between corners, or put in the beginning instructions that there will be a change in the functions of the corners.