[CT-NFB] about Absentee Voting via Email Ballot

[Nathanael T. Wales]

All,

 

The first e-mailed ballot I got was unreadable with JAWS on my Windows PC (actually two PCs), but on Scott’s advice I requested a fillable one that does, in fact, work well enough.  There are still some challenges with it.  There is also an important difference we might not be expecting if we’ve only used the ballot marking computer (and before that the IBS vote by phone system).

 

As I scrolled down the ballot that I received that worked, it listed all of the parties and then their candidates for each office.  There was the list of Democrats (Biden for president, my incumbent congressman, and so on) followed by the Republicans (Trump for president followed by the challenger for congressman and so on) and then the Independence Party and so on.  The party list heading “Democrat”, “Republican”, and so on are only read by JAWS not by tabbing through the checkboxes but rather using the arrow keys to move up and down the document.  If you’re voting right down the party line for every office, this is easy.  If you want to know all the candidates running in a particular race or if a third party like the Independence Party or the Working Families Party endorsed a Democrat or Republican in a particular race, you need to read through the entire document and associate the race number (1, 2, 3, and so on) with the race listing above the list (again, found using the arrow keys).  In my case, Race 1 was president, Race 2 was congressional representative, and so on.  This is also important if you want to indicate you’re voting, say Independence Party, for their endorsed but Republican candidate (instead of the candidate under the Republican line).  There finally are checkboxes for a write in for each race; if you plan to write someone in check the box next to the race number and then write in the name in the blank.

 

I hope this will be helpful.  If you have questions about any of this, please feel free to let me know.

 

Respectfully,

Nathanael Wales

 

 

From: CT-NFB [mailto:ct-nfb-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Cheri Duquette via CT-NFB
Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2020 10:01 PM
To: slabarre at labarrelaw.com; NFB of Connecticut Mailing List
Cc: cbduquette at comcast.net
Subject: Re: [CT-NFB] about Absentee Voting via Email Ballot

 

Hi,

Though I did need to assist Paul somewhat, he was successful. He uses, Jaws, Dragon, and JSay Pro. He was able to open the attached ballot within the email, and though Jaws spoke way to fast, he was able to tell Dragon to tab through the ballot. Jaws would read to him the candidates name and tell him the box was checked/unchecked. He would then speak check box to select the candidate and then speak tab for the next candidate. When it came to saving the ballot to his hard drive I needed to get involved. But he was able to print and I will be dropping it off at the ballot box, and I assisted with his signing the inner envelope. 

Most folks we know are able to use the keyboard.  Our experience was a good one. Good luck!

Cheri Duquette

Central CT Chapter

Sent from my iPhone





On Oct 15, 2020, at 9:01 PM, Scott C. LaBarre via CT-NFB <ct-nfb at nfbnet.org> wrote:



Greetings everyone:

 

The SOS has started to send out email ballots to those who requested them.  I would like to get your reports about how accessible the ballots were for you.  Two folks have emailed me thus far.  One was able to use it to some degree with Zoomtext.  The other couldn’t use it at all with JAWS.  Please send me reports at:

 

slabarre at labarrelaw.com

 

It is not too late to request an email ballot.  Use the attached form and send it to your town clerk.  I also want to receive reports from those who requested an email ballot and have not gotten one. 

 

Thanks,

Scott

 

P.S.  Happy White Cane Day!!

<ED-3-Rev-20-Final.pdf>

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