Reply #47: According to one of them, they don't care... [View All]

[GregD]

OK, now one individual (you, me or someone else) do not necessarily speak for the entire community. I'm sure we all agree to that. However, let me repeat what one of Dickson's activists stated in the Denver Workshop.

So we've got Jim and his guide-dog, and 6 folks in wheelchairs. Only one of them (an African American woman) was actively involved (besides Jim) in the debate when they arrived (or later when we revised the schedule to accomodate them) - the others basically hung out and watched. Her name escapes me at the moment, and she claimed to have been an elections supervisor in the past. Among her remarks, and I believe I recall them precisely, she stated "I don't care how they count the votes, I just want to be able to vote in privacy".

Now this became a very heated debate, with a lot of emotion in the room, but she was really clear about that point... She just doesn't seem to see our concerns about secret software, and stayed focused on the very narrow issue of private accessibility. And I have no memory of Dickson, who was standing right next to her, seeking to challenge or soften any of her comments.

Punpirate's note (above) where he copied the arguements from the AAPD express this in detail, and very nicely. But to remain brief, their complaint was that our expression of our concerns "simply delayed the point when they would receive the ability to vote in privacy, and in an accessible manner."