A new ballot-marking machine, intended for disabled voters was first made available for voting today, but it took a librarian, Susan Chute, to convince polling authorities to allow voters to use it in a precinct where there weren’t enough standard machines.
Story from NYTimes City blog:The machines, introduced in 2006 but not available citywide until this year, have generated considerable confusion and uncertainty among poll workers and voters, as evidenced by the scene today at one polling place, Public School 149 in Harlem.
Voters there complained that there were only two voting machines in use, while the ballot-marking device had been sitting unused since polls opened at 6 a.m.
When asked why the ballot-marking device — which is based on a touch screen — was not open for use, a Democratic district leader at the polling place, William Allen, said that nobody in line was willing to use it because of fears that votes would be miscounted for the wrong candidate or not counted at all.
At that moment, Susan L. Chute, a librarian at the New York Public Library, who was waiting in line and overheard Mr. Allen’s comments, piped up and offered to use the machine, and said she was angry that it had not been announced as an option six hours earlier, when polls opened.
should read: Pushy librarian hogs disability voting machine
headline “Pushy librarian hogs disability voting machine so votes not counted.”
“It’s very easy to use,” [the librarian] added. “It’s like an A.T.M. machine. People use screens like that every day.”
But when she returned home, the librarian discovered that 250 Obama’s had beed deducted from her checking account.
pushy women, unite!!
What would this country be without pushy women? I’m pushy and I’m proud.
Good for her
I’d be a little annoyed if I had waited hours only to learn that the machine available for the disabled was not available to others when a disabled voter was not using it.
I don’t stand in a queue in the loo when all the other boxes are occupied and leave the disabled throne unoccupied. I get in, do my voting and get out.
Good for her, pushy men such as I support the pushy women.