New Machines Allow More with Disabilities to Vote – If They Can Access the Polling Place

More voters than ever cast independent, secret ballots, but hurdles remain
By Elizabeth Schneider
11/18/2004
Electionline

Three weeks after Election Day, computer scientists, activists, election officials and candidates continue to spar over voting technology.

Lost in the debate, however, were the rave reviews the machines received from people with disabilities who used the machines, particularly from voters who cast independent and secret ballots for the first time in their lives.

“We received a lot of enthusiastic response from people who voted for the first time,” said Jim Dickson, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities.

This year 32 states allowed voters to cast electronic ballots in some areas. In 19 states voters used multiple voting systems including lever, punch card, paper and optical scan ballots.

E-voting may well be nationwide by 2006, per the Help America Vote Act, which requires every polling place in the country to have at least one voting machine that “allows people to vote secretly and independently.”

Voters with disabilities still encountered obstacles despite finding more accessible machines than ever before.

Election Day complaints fell into several categories including voters who said they were unable to cast secret ballots to those who could not access their polling sites, Dickson said.

“In Ohio and Michigan, people who are usually allowed to use curbside voting waited longer than usual because of the long lines at the polls – this meant poll workers were too busy to come out to the cars in a timely manner,” he said. “Too many places did not make accommodations for people with disabilities, who were not wheelchair bound, in terms of the long lines.”

Then there is the issue of access for those who want to be inside polling places, or just park nearby.

HAVA allocates $850 million to the states over three years to purchase accessible voting equipment, footing about 95 percent of the total cost. But it offers far less to make other changes to make voting more accessible on the way to the machine itself. The bill appropriates $100 million to make polling places physically accessible. The grants will be awarded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

That money, however, will take time to distribute. Right now, most states are only starting to figure out what they will need the money for, as few have undertaken thorough studies into what physical barriers exist at polling places.

One exception, however, is Massachusetts, a state that recently conducted a survey which discovered nearly 60 percent of polling places did not comply with the accessibility mandates outlined in the 2002 Help America Vote Act. In all, 893 of 1,488 polling sites were considered “non-conforming” for reasons that included a lack of signage indicating parking spaces reserved for persons with disabilities, lack of wheelchair ramps and handrails and insufficient lighting.

Jim Backer, a spokesman for United Cerebral Palsy and a member of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities said though the report may have reflected poorly on the state’s polling place situation, it was nonetheless “a bold thing to do.” More states, he said, should follow. 

“It was critical and they made it public,” he said. “At least they conducted a survey.”

Missouri conducted a similar survey and found a wide disparity in the state’s polling places. According to an article in The Southeastern Missourian, it found that about 70 percent to 80 percent of polling places in the urban areas of St. Louis and Kansas City were accessible, compared to 10 percent of polling places in rural areas.

To make sure similar studies are undertaken across the country, Dickson said organizations including his own AAPD would work to create a “detailed road map of what needs to be done in the future.”

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