The Democracy Machine : How One Engineer Made Voting Possible For All

The University of Florida has an ambitious goal: to harness the power of its faculty, staff, students, and alumni to solve some of society’s most pressing problems and to become a resource for the state of Florida, the nation, and the world. Engineer Juan Gilbert, a specialist in human-centered computing, was driven to make it possible for people with disabilities to vote like everyone else.

He spent 10 years perfecting Prime III, an accessible electronic voting system, and his creation was tested in real voting settings and earned rave reviews from elections supervisors around the country. Learn the story behind the voting machine designed to be used by everyone, and meet the man who has dedicated his life’s work to helping people who have been marginalized exercise this country’s most empowering guarantee: the right to vote. The stories chronicled in GATORBYTES span all colleges and units across the UF campus.

They detail the far-reaching impact of UF’s research, technologies, and innovations—and the UF faculty members dedicated to them.

Gatorbytes describe how UF is continuing to build on its strengths and extend the reach of its efforts so that it can help even more people in even more places.