In agreement that some pushing for touchscreen systems to improve voter accessibility are misguided. The voting machine companies have spent years courting PWDs (people with disabilities) for their support of these contraptions.

What's interesting is that the case for touchscreen as an accessibility solution isn't mainly coming from the PWDs community but more from those who have a pro-touchscreen agenda in general, i.e., the voting machine companies themselves, and the elections officers who jumped the gun by getting all dazzled and buying these systems and are now grasping at straws to defend their commitment of massive tax dollars for these hunks of junk.

One common defense you hear a lot is, "We had to buy these machines because HAVA requires us to make unaided voting possible for the disabled." So, who is considered
"disabled" under HAVA? Well, that's not really defined. But hey, the touchscreen systems are great for the visually impaired because of the zoom feature, and for people in wheelchairs because you can use the touchscreen machine right in your lap. So they are said to meet the requirement for accessibility, even though we don't even define in HAVA who needs accessibility.

I want to see the studies that show 1. who needs increased accessibility; and 2. that touch-screen is the best or only way to meet those needs; and 3. that if touchscreen is the best or only way, why making one or more machines available at each polling place is insufficient and all other voting methods must be replaced with touchscreen systems.

I'm particularly unimpressed with two big selling points of the touchscreen systems as a solution for voting accessibility. The first is the zoom feature, which is supposed to be a way for the visually impaired to enlarge text on the screen. Not that this is a bad feature in itself, but it's not exactly revolutionary as a way of making a ballot easier to see. There's a really simple technology, CCTV (closed circuit television), also called a TV magnifier, basically just a camera and a monitor, that you put whatever you want to look at under the camera and it is displayed on the TV screen. You could even use it to magnify paper ballots if you can imagine that. (here's a picture of one:
http://www.lssproducts.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD
&Store_Code=LSS&Product_Code=X-AB14&Category_Code=CCTV )

Those machines aren't as cheap as providing a station with good strong lighting and a very large magnifying lens, but running about $2,000-3,000 still somewhat less expensive, and more versatile, than one of those touchscreen voting units.

Unlike the voting machine, the CCTV could be used year round at libraries and schools instead of sitting in a warehouse taking up space between elections. And lots of cities already have them.

As for the portability of the touchscreen, that's not unique either. The punchcard systems, at least the ones we use in our county, can be taken off their stand and used on a person's lap while seated, or taken out to the PWD's car (is an acceptable practice at all?) or to hospitals, etc., just as easily as the touchscreens.

So we shouldn't be letting those arguments for touchscreens go unchallenged.

One other thing about touchscreen machines, they are absurdly expensive for what they are and what they do. Even the election officials (see Mischelle Townsend of Riverside Cty, CA) admit that the machines should pay for themselves in about 10 years, although they say it like it's a good thing. 10 years! Imagine what we'd be have if we were just now breaking even for 10 year old technology (Windows 3.1, 16MB of RAM, no audio... ?) and this means in theory, you don't have money for at least 10 years to replace your system with anything else.

If you really care about accessibility, then you should be even more against sinking so much money into touchscreen voting machines in such a hurry. Think about what kinds of disabilities we might be able to assist with technology in just a couple of years if we hold back on committing some of those funds instead of tying it all up for 10 years in today's technology. 10 years ago we wouldn't even have had touch screens, and we probably wouldn't have had a computerized voting machine with even audio or good visual features either.

Then I read an article about a year old in the trades that said touch screen devices would be much more expensive for a while because of a shortage of some special kind of glass they need to manufacture them. So localities are also contracting for these machines at the most expensive possible time from a supply standpoint, where if they only waited a year or two until the special glass shortage was resolved, they'd probably be much cheaper.

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