<html> LBOers, 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 <blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>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@compuserve.com _________________________________________________________________ To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your options, visit:   <a href="http://list.design-inst.nl/mailman/listinfo/infodesign-cafe" eudora="autourl">http://list.design-inst.nl/mailman/listinfo/infodesign-cafe</a> For all Information Design matters:   <a href="http://informationdesign.org/" eudora="autourl">http://InformationDesign.org</a> Problems? 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