Guest Blogged by John Gideon of VotersUnite.org
According to a new report issued by VoterAction and Demos, “Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines, once considered essential to ensuring private and independent voting booth access for voters with disabilities, often do not work as promised, according to a new report published today. Authored by access technology expert Noel Runyan and published by election reform groups Demos and Voter Action, ‘Improving Access to Voting: A Report on the Technology for Accessible Voting Systems’ shows that, due to inadequate or malfunctioning voting machines, voters with disabilities are frequently forced to ask for assistance or compromise the privacy of their vote— severe violations of federal disability accommodation requirements. The report details significant difficulties for voters with disabilities, including: the lack of a controllable interface for those who are unable to use touch screens or tactile key inputs; inadequate audio access features for people with visual or cognitive impairments, with dyslexia, or with severe motor-impairments; and lack of privacy curtains to prevent others from reading the voters’ selections on their visual displays.
‘I originally had high hopes for the new voting machines’ said Noel Runyan, the author of the report. Runyan, who is blind, is a professional electrical engineer who has spent much of his career developing access technologies for people with visual impairments. ‘Even with my technical background and the help of poll workers, I could not get the Sequoia Edge II DRE to work. I have since tested most of the available voting systems at conferences and at the National Federation of the Blind’s accessible voting systems lab, and my fears have been confirmed: Most of the DREs deployed were not designed with real disability access in mind.'”…
eSlate electronic voting machines faulty, federal filing says. LINK
**”Daily Voting News” is meant as a comprehensive listing of reports each day concerning issues related to election and voting news around the country regardless of quality or political slant. Therefore, items listed in “Daily Voting News” may not reflect the opinions of VotersUnite.Org or BradBlog.Com**
“Most of the DREs deployed were not designed with real disability access in mind.”
One wonders, in light of decades of articles and governmental reports, and one tester of machines for 300 million people, what did they have in mind when they designed them?
February 14, 2007 — Noam Chomsky has signed a petition written by the 9/11 “Jersey” widows calling for the release of classified documents relating to the 9/11 attacks. The Muckraker Report has contacted him by e-mail and verified that the individual listed on the petition is indeed Noam Chomsky. Chomsky’s name is #6432:
That said, now that Chomsky has agreed to sign the widows’ petition, the Muckraker Report would like to see the following people sign too: Alexander Cockburn and crew at Counterpunch, the editorial staff at the Nation, Michael Moore, Barbara Ehrenreich, Amy Goodman, Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, Seymour Hersh, Nicholas Leman at the New Yorker, Christopher Hayes, anyone who writes for the Daily Kos, including Kos himself, and the absolutely divine Camille Paglia.