[nfbmi-talk] voting fiasco!

[trising at sbcglobal.net]

Did anyone else have trouble yesterday in casting an independent and secret 
vote. We waited close to two hours, only to discover that our Auto Marks 
machine would not recognize the ballot. Noone at our polling location knew 
how to fix it. I asked one official if someone would lend a cell phone so we 
could call the NFB's voting number. The lady could barely use the cell phone 
and kept asking me questions about the phone like, "Should I press this big 
silver button? I do not have a cell phone. Of course, I was not familiar 
with the phone. I would think the buttons would be labeled, but the lady 
seemed to have difficulty.  When we finally got through, the call was 
dropped when it was transferred to the technology assistance department. I 
had to catch a cab to another location, and had already been at the polling 
place for close to two and a half hours. I was told I would have to wait for 
a custodian to come from another location to attempt to fix the machine, or 
I could let a worker fill out the ballot. Since time was getting short, I 
had someone fill out the ballot. I was really looking forward to using the 
machine to cast a secret and independent vote. We had even gone to training, 
where we were allowed to use the machines to fill out a silly ballot, in 
order to familiarize ourselves with the machine. It worked fine for the 
tests, but not when it really mattered.