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| | Name : | David Dill | Organization : | Verified Voting Foundation | Post Date : | 9/30/2005 |
| Glossary Term : | Electronically-Assisted Ballot Marker (EBM)_a | Definition : | | Comment : | Machines that provide assistance to
voters who are visually impaired, who have difficulty reading English, or in other cases where a voter has difficulty correctly marking by hand a preprinted paper ballot that is to be
counted in optical scan systems. The device marks, or helps to mark selected vote choices on a previously inserted, preprinted paper ballot. The machine then provides audio, tactile,
or visual feedback to the voter on what choices they have made on the ballot. The resulting ballots are later tabulated on the same unit that processes ordinary hand-marked paper
ballots.
Association: voting, human factors
Source: IEEE 1583
There is no reason to assume that EBMs will only be used exclusively by voters with disabilities or reading impairments, even if that was their originally-intended purpose. One
could imagine an EBM used by the able-bodied, or an EBM that is inaccessible to voters with some combinations of disabilities (e.g., voters who are blind and deaf). Some advocate the use of EBMs for all voters (except absentee voters) using a central-count
optical scan/marksense voting system in order to prevent common voter errors such as overvotes, thus serving a broader purpose beyond accessibility.
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