In Ithaca, NY, we always had a lever system for voting, and, lying on the table in front of the voting booth (which is presided over by blue-haired old ladies whose daughters are selling homemade brownies at a nearby table to raise money for the school football team) there's a paper printout of the voting booth scenario which you can inspect so's to understand ahead of time which lever to pull (said blue-haired dames will explain, if necessary). Fairly straightforward, as these things go.
But apparently the punchcard system appears to be used a lot of other places, and according to the description given by another Information Designer below, would seem to be a lot hairier than I thought. It's also interesting to note that voters are supposed to be able to get a second chance if they fuck up the first time, though they'd only be able to prove that if they brought their instruction booklet with them -- which a lot of disappointed Florida voters apparently did not, since they were refused a second ballot when they realised they'd voted for Buchanan instead of Gore.
cheers, Joanna
>Randal,
>
> > This seems like a very critical issue, which no one
> > is discussing. I have voted with punchcards. They are
> > always spiral-bound (not like in the illustrations
> > being used). Even when the ballot is clear, you often
> > have to slide the cards up and down a bit to make
> > sure you are punching out the right holes.
>
>&
>
> > Actually -- what I meant to say here is that they are
> > bound on long wires pivoting in plastic socket at the
> > top and bottom, which often have very large amounts
> > of give. I have previously been very confused by
> > which hole goes with which candiate -- even with a
> > STANDARD ballot.
>
>Agreed. My ballot was as you described (they've been this way for a long
>time now), and I've long disliked the whole contraption.
>
>The chained punch key (aka "punch stylus") which you use to mark your
>ballot oftentimes sticks in a hole, and when you try to pull it out,
>misaligns the punchcard. The whole process of punching holes in your ballot
>means that one tends to rely on aural feedback, which is inconsistent --
>sometimes punching out a hole makes a satisfying sound, and sometimes it
>doesn't. And then there's the tactile feedback, which is totally confusing,
>as almost every hole punches differently. Add to this the fact that one
>votes in portable 3-walled cardboard booths on spindly legs, which are far
>from stable to begin with. The more vigorously you punch at your ballot,
>the more vigorously your booth dances around the polling place.
>
>Since I always vote at night, this is done in semi-darkness. The cardboard
>booths, which seem to absorb all ambient light, are arbitrarily positioned
>(for privacy) in a neighbor's garage, which is inadequately illuminated to
>begin with. It's so hard to see what you're doing, that I've more than once
>thought about bringing my head-mounted lamp with me.
>
>In order to reduce my own confusion with these devices, I mark up the
>(paper ;) Sample Ballot & Voter Information Pamphlet that I get in the mail
>ahead of time with a purple felt-tipped pen, and take this with me when I
>vote. And then I vote by number, following the purple X marks in my paper
>booklet: if the circle numbered 213 has a fat purple X in my paper
>pamphlet, I find the no. 213 hole in the ballot and punch it. This
>translates to a NO vote on California Proposition 38, but if I tried to
>read all this in the dense spiral booklet (little white space here!) and
>follow the arrows, in a dimly lit voting booth, who knows what I'd end up
>voting for? It's easier to hunt-and-punch by number. And even then, I'm
>never quite sure that I punched all the right holes.
>
>One other advantage to taking the paper Sample Ballot & Voter Information
>Pamphlet with you to vote, is the instruction sheet inside the front cover.
>It clearly states:
>
> "_If you make a mistake_, return the ballot
> card to the precinct officer to obtain another."
>
>This is useful for waving at officious precinct workers who would deny one
>a fresh ballot.
>
>Then the instructions tell you to remove your ballot from the device and
>"carefully inspect" it before turning it in (I don't know about others, but
>I'm not a literate reader of punchcards, myself). The voter is further
>instructed to "Remove any punchouts that did not get completely detached."
>Presumably, the skilled voter accomplishes this without tearing more
>punchouts in the process.
>
>Deborah
>_____
>
>Deborah Taylor-Pearce
>70403.3260 at compuserve.com
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>
>To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your options, visit:
> http://list.design-inst.nl/mailman/listinfo/infodesign-cafe
>
>For all Information Design matters:
> http://InformationDesign.org
>
>Problems? Write to:
> InfoDesign-Cafe-admin at list.design-inst.nl
>_________________________________________________________________
-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20001112/6b4b40d4/attachment.htm>