Over and over, journalists ask voters about their experiences using a touchscreen voting machine, and the answer they report is a variation of, "It was easy to use." We agree that voting machines should be easy to use. But the touchscreen machines' reputation for being easy is not all that it seems.

For example, we have an eyewitness account that in at least one Pennsylvania precinct last Tuesday, poll workers stood side-by-side with voters and helped them cast their votes on the new machines. [Privacy concerns, anyone?] Another report from voting machine watchdog John Gideon, editor of the Daily Voting News, mentions that tall people often have difficulty voting on DREs because the machines are calibrated by someone much shorter.