(US) 10/08 - National: Voting on a DR...

Author Message   Mark Michaels Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Mark_michaels Post Number: 66 Registered: 1-2008 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, October 31, 2008 - 3:16 pm:        For anyone who must vote on a touch screen, bring a new pencil with an unused eraser to the polling place. Tap the screen with the eraser, not your finger. If you tap the screen with the head of the eraser, you will avoid many of the problems associated with touch screens. First, the eraser head is much smaller than your finger tip. A large (or, may I say "fat?) finger might inadertently touch the area assigned to more than one candidate. A close relative of mine has huge fingers. There is no way he would be able to touch a voting area smaller than his massive fingertip. Next, the eraser avoids the problems that may be caused by a long fingernail that could drag into the next candidate space. By lifting the pencil in a deliberate motion rather than dragging it, this problem is avoided altogether. Finally, moving the eraser straight down and back up away from the screen helps reduce the problem of parallax, where the voter doesn't realize the effect of looking at a screen from an angle. I used this technique many times when testing DREs. It's simple yet effective.   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 9972 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, October 31, 2008 - 4:30 pm:        It is probably obvious to those reading Mark's posts, but I'll confirm: He is a former employee of ES&S. I am very glad to see Mark weigh in here with his insights. The eraser is an excellent idea. I have a question, have long wondered this: Mark, if a person votes on a miscalibrated machine, for example, the one where they tried to vote for Obama but the vote popped over to McKinney, is the vote then recorded for McKinney?   Marian Beddill Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant Username: Uu7thprinciple Post Number: 170 Registered: 8-2005 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, October 31, 2008 - 5:26 pm:        And if I may add a quirk to your question, Bev: What is the probability of a complete correlation between the info shown on the screen after such a "vote", and the info that gets recorded in the database? Or, expressed in the reverse, is there much chance that the data recorded does not match the dislay on the screen. Mark and many others know full well that the code-operations ("subroutines") which create the display are very different from those which insert bits and bytes into an internal record. They both ("all") presumably derive their data from a common source, but they must manipulate or evaluate it, before the final act. Things like data range validity -- is it less than zero when logic says it cannot be. Only after all those "tests" does the display/registry really happen. Marian http://NoLeakyBuckets.org   Bev Harris Board Administrator Username: Admin Post Number: 9983 Registered: 12-2004 Best of Black Box? N/A Votes: 0 (A keeper?) Posted on Friday, October 31, 2008 - 10:34 pm:        Good questions. Good people. Glad you both are here. Marian, off-topic but if you haven't seen it yet, check out the newest Protect the Count video: Absentee and Central Count locations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZp3rA1XXjw You're in the credits, and the excellent process in Whatcom County is mentioned for the rest of the nation to see.

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