In a message to David Andrews  Harvey Heagy wrote:
 > DA> Westbrook had to ask for a
 > DA> second
 > DA> ballot because she lost track of
 > DA> what categories she was voting on but
 > DA> finished easily the second time.
 HH> That's the major problem with the
 HH> punch card system.  when I lived in Texas
 HH> they went to the punch card balloting
 HH> and unlike the voting machines wherein if
 HH> you made a mistake you could just lift
 HH> the lever and then push the correct one
 HH> or in the case of computerized
 HH> machines push the button to toggle it off and
 HH> then push the correct one, with the
 HH> punch cards if you make a mistake you have
 HH> to begin again with a new ballot and
 HH> if the ballot is long that is time
 HH> consuming. Hopefully other forms of
 HH> voting will be accessible at some point.
I agree.  I haven't kept up regularly with this thread during the 
last few weeks but I got a copy of Jim Gashel's message 
maintaining that computerized voting equipment should talk.  I 
have no problem with this.  However, Jim thinks that computerized 
voting will catch on everywhere soon.  I beg to differ.  I think 
punch-card balloting will be the rule here in the West for at 
least the next twenty years.  In fact, there is a move afoot in 
Oregon, as I believe Robert Jaquiss has mentioned, to go to 
ballot-by-mail.  Obviously, one cannot send a computer to each 
registered voter .  The one time I voted absentee from 
Washington State, I received a punch-card ballot mounted on a 
foam-rubber backing and there was a stylus-like thing provided to 
punch out the appropriate holes.  I, of course, used a reader.
Mr. Gashel is absolutely correct in condemning as damn near 
unworkable the tape-recorder system as used in El Paso.  This 
certainly wouldn't be feasible with ballot-by-mail.  And I agree 
that computerized voting gear should talk.  However, as I say, I 
don't think it will catch on nearly as quickly as Jim thinks and I 
am also worried that increasingly we blind persons are coming to 
denigrate the usefulness of readers and that if we continue to do 
so we wil lose the privilege of using them on the job -- a 
disaster.  In fact, I know one person who handles the GUI by use 
of a reader -- he can't make heads or tails of his screen-reader!
Mike Freeman
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