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Interactive Stimuli Voting

This accessible voting booth, within all or some polling stations, might enable people with most kinds of disabilities to cast their votes anonymously.

The interface could include a combination of adaptive technology that without requiring a large investment, could facilitate the process. It could include Audio (head phones) and Video ( to enlarge the options ) in order to let the voter know the options, along with a few different stimuli recognition hardware options ( Pal pad switches, camera mouse, speech recognition, or others) in order to allow a voting process. (( Addaptive technology links : www.quadjoy.com, www.eyetechds.com, www.bilila.com, www.infogrip, www.equalitytechnology.org ))

If the vote is emitted electronically, the aforementioned solution is the end of it, but if the ballot is a physical one, then some additional economic infrastructure should be included to ensure marking ((The selection could trigger a DOT Matrix printer to mark each ballot in the proper place)) and then dropping the ballot in the proper boxes without needing the help of anyone else.

Some of the inspirations mentioned size restrictions, and the actual process of accessing the polling station, so I guess we would need to define minimal standards for polling station size, door width, inside circulations, ramps, etc.

There were also some mentions about transparency, and I believe that having this physical booth might solve most of the transparency issue.

An additional feature could be combining this with a Crowds.Mapping solution as Nat Manning commented on her inspiration, which could help schedule the easiest time slots for voters with disabilities.https://crowdmap.com/mhi

Comments

Alfredo Reynoso

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February 29, 2012, 01:21AM

Dan,
I believe you've just extracted the marrow from the idea. Interactive stimuli is just a way to “mark the ballot”, but there are still many other issues to solve. For example, mixing this with Priyanka’s “Voting Vans”, Nat Manning’s “Crowds sourcing” and so many other ideas, we might end up with a universal solution for an accessible election experience for everyone.

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Dan Perkel

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February 28, 2012, 06:50PM

I can't comment either way on immediate feasibility, but what I like about this idea is that it gets to the idea that we have a lot of diverse tools out there for "marking" a ballot, even beyond pens, mice, punch cards, thumb prints, etc. The language of "interactive stimuli" and the visual here may distract from the fact that there may be ways to reconfigure the whole voting process that take into account voting orally, with gestures, with other devices, with eye-blinks, tapping one's feet (I should stop now...). Thinking about alternative methods of marking, forces a consideration of how much the whole voting infrastructure could be changed. This is a huge challenge, of course, but once that's really compelling.

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Alfredo Reynoso

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February 25, 2012, 01:38PM

Hello Shane. I see your point and believe that your observation would be absolutely accurate if we were looking to find an integral solution for all people's everyday needs. But you have to remember that we are only trying to solve a very specific need, which is casting a vote, and in that sense we can be much more flexible in the solution, taking advantage of which ever physical resources each person might have, as well as from a combination of selected interactive stimuli interfaces available in the market.

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Shane Hogan

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February 25, 2012, 11:43AM

I'm not so sure that this is a workable solution. Assistive Technology is very personal. The technology that suits one individual will not suit another person. I fear that it would be effectively impossible or hugely expensive to have a full spectrum of Assistive Technology at every polling station.

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