[gui-talk] Polling place access (was Re: political websites)

[Joel Deutsch]

At my polling place yesterday, I was encouraged (read: nearly forced) to sit 
down at a table on which a smallish square plastic-housed device sat. it was 
there last election, but I chose not to use it, preferring to just let a 
friendly poll worker look at the list of ballot choices I'd typed up and 
printed out and do the ballot-punching, reading out to me as required what 
they were about to do on each candidate or ballot issue to get my assent. As 
I've said here before, I happen to be quite comfortable with that in my 
voting precinct, where I feel politically and culturally in friendly 
company. if it need be said, I'm all for self sufficiency, where I feel it 
matters to me. Which this situation wasn't an example of.

but this time, the poll worker who set me up was really enthusiastic about 
my using the little device, because the place was filled with voters as I'd 
never seen it before, clogging the voting-booth room of the senior center 
and forming a line out the door and down the street. and this was 
mid-morning, after the conventional pre-work morning rush was supposed to be 
over. So they were feeling short-handed and wanted to not have to spare 
someone to vote with me, if they didn't have to.  I could understand this. I 
could sympathize. So I sat down there, thinking, okay, so I'll learn 
something. I wonder how well this will work for me?

Well, as I said, there's this plastic box thing. On its face are just a few 
tactile controls. A quartet of arrows for left and right, up and down, and a 
button set well apart from that area and encircled by a raised ridge to 
prevent accidental presses. This was the Vote button, I eventually 
understood.

"I've never used this thing," I told the guy.

"Well, don't worry," he said, "we've had it here for a couple of elections 
and you'll be the very first person to use it."

"Have you ever tried it, yourself?" I asked him? "Do you know how it works?"

"No," he said. "I don't have to know. They give instructions over the 
headphones." He was handing me a set of headphones at that moment, and with 
one hand I traced the cord to an input jack on the front edge of the device.

"Okay," he said, "Now just put on the headphones." And he walked away. I 
can't see well, but I could see him moving away and disappearing entirely.

"Chuck?" I called. "  No answer. So I put on the headphones. Nothing was 
coming out of them, not at least for the few seconds I held them onto my 
head. I felt around the case of the device for some sort of button that 
would start up the audio, but there wasn't any such control, as far as I 
could tell. I started calling around, asking "Where's chuck?"

Someone got chuck, who was annoyed. "I told you to put on the headphones," 
he said. "Now put them on." I started to ask how this part of the procedure 
worked, but he'd disappeared already. I waited a second then put on the 
headphone. A male voice was in the middle of something I'd missed the 
beginning of, by a good bit. I sighed and removed the headphones.

"How do I get this going again?" I asked to the hovering forms of  the 
faceless people near me. Someone who'd been watching explained that they'd 
seen the guy go a few yards away to some sort of computer or something where 
he'd pushed a button. That's what had started the audio going. It wasn't 
something I, the user, could operate myself. I got up and went to the end of 
the registration table nearest me. "I'd like to talk to the precinct 
captain," I said to the form sitting behind the table who was just then 
taking a completed ballot from someone and handing them their stub. I could 
see this in a foggy way.

"I'm busy," he said with annoyance. "And that *was* the precinct captain. 
Now just go back and sit down. You're not helping me."

"I think your job is to be helping *me*" I said, going back to stand by that 
little machine and try to figure out what to do next.

Just then, a young woman came up to me. "I'm Darcy," she said. the actress. 
Remember, we had a nice talk in the laundromat one weekend a couple of 
months ago?"

I said I remembered her, and she said she'd just finished her voting and 
asked if she could help. I took the folded sheet with my list out of my 
pocket and opened it up. "Yeah," I said. "If you could spare a couple of 
minutes to just come to the booth with me." She said she wasn't sure that 
was legal, and I said I'd just looked up all the rules on a government web 
site and could reassure her that it's perfectly legal for you to have a 
friend, spouse or anyone you like accompany you at the voting booth.

So she punched all the holes for me while looking at my list and checking 
with me before she punched. It took about two minutes, tops. And then we 
took the completed ballot to the desk, I got my receipt and a little "I 
voted" sticker to put on my shirt, and she walked me outside. "You voted 
exactly like I did on everything," she said. "Good," I said. She introduced 
me to her boyfriend, who had been waiting outside while she helped me, and 
we chatted for a while, and I thanked her again and went off to the bus 
stop.

Which all goes to show, it's not a waste of time to be sociable at the 
laundromat.