[Ohio-talk] voting issue

Tue Nov 3 20:12:53 UTC 2015

Marianne, your voting experience sounds extremely frustrating and voting
results from Hamilton County questionable. I heard that John Husted was in
the Cincinnati area today to make sure the new machines work smoothly. It
was reported that poll workers received a total of 3 hours training. I know
this was not your challenge today but it leads me to my rant from the
culmination of voting experiences I have had including this morning.

I arrived to vote in Butler County at 6:30 am. My husband and I went early
so he could get to work afterwards. I know from previous experience that I
don't want to be the first blind person of the day because the poll workers
still have to work out the bugs in their limited training. I believe Butler
County uses different voting machines than Hamilton County. They were
installed after the paper ballot issues in the 2000 presidential election
year. Butler county machines have large print, high contrast (note: they
claim its high contrast), and speech. They have only one headset for our
large voting precinct at one machine. These machines promise to be a great
private no assistance voting experience for the blind but I have not to this
date been able to vote without assistance.

This morning the poll workers did not even notice I was blind despite my
joke about giving them an extra challenge first thing in the morning and
having a white cane front and center. To use the machine in an accessible
manner the voting card must be programmed properly. A more experienced poll
worker happened by the check in table after my voting card was in hand and
my husband (who is sighted) was checking in. The more experienced poll
worker noticed my cane and asked if the voting card was programmed for
"hidden ballot." The workers said no. This insider verbiage is apparently
the programming option which will enable the speech software to work at the
only machine reserved for accessibility. This machine was of course
occupied. Knowing my husbands need to get to work, I decided not to make a
stink about the error. He read the ballot to me and I told him what to
select.

This experience is just one of many many times the voting process has left
me frustrated. I have yet to experience this so called private voting. I
have had to rely on friends or have been escorted by both a Democratic and
Republican poll worker to help me cast my ballot. I can only remember one
instance when the programming was done correctly and I voted without issue.
For this victory, all of the poll workers gave themselves a round of
applause. 

On a side note, I always try to read the actual language of issues appearing
on the ballot prior to voting. To do this, I go to the Butler County Board
of Elections website. This year it was extra tricky to find. I shifted gears
to the state of Ohio website and found that the pdf files were saved as
images so Magic screen reading software would not work. I then gave up on
figuring this out on my own and called Butler County where they walked me
through a series of steps to retrieve a sample ballot for my precinct. It
was a frustrating afternoon but I am happy I did this because it would have
been an even more frustrating morning at the polls waiting for my lovely
assistant to read every detail on the ballot.

I don't know how we fix these challenges but I for one am ready to get what
is promised to us. That is, a private, secure, reliable, and accessible
voting experience.

Perturbed Voter in West Chester,

Rachel Kuntz
937 245-0547 

-----Original Message-----
From: Ohio-talk [mailto:ohio-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Marianne
Denning via Ohio-talk
Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2015 1:57 PM
To: NFB of Ohio Announcement and Discussion List
Cc: Marianne Denning
Subject: [Ohio-talk] voting issue

I voted earlier today, using the accessible voting machine.
Everything went very well until I got to issue 3.  If you have been under a
rock for a long time this is the marijuana issue.  It would not let me
choose to vote yes or no.  I pushed the button to ask for help.  A poll
worker came over and I showed him what was happening.
At this point they can see my ballot.  I voted on all other issues and
proceeded to submit my ballot.  My husband was looking at my ballot and it
indicated I voted for the issue.  He also observed that there was a problem
with the way the ballot was set up on that issue.  I have 2 concerns here.
First, I was not able to choose which way to vote on the ballot and other
people were able to view my ballot.  I have contacted the NFB office to
speak to someone about this since they are interested in Ohio right now.  I
will keep you informed.

--
Marianne Denning, TVI, MA
Teacher of students who are blind or visually impaired
(513) 607-6053

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