Trial over new voting machines to begin

By Paul Pinkham
Times-Union staff writer

In a case with national implications, a federal judge will be asked to decide this week whether Duval County elections officials discriminated against blind and other disabled voters when they purchased new ballot equipment in 2001.

Testimony begins today in an Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit filed by three Jacksonville voters and a national disabled rights organization.

They argue that optical scanners purchased by Duval County Supervisor of Elections John Stafford in the wake of the 2000 election debacle don't allow visually and manually impaired voters to cast a ballot in secret. Stafford could have bought touch-screen equipment that reads ballots out loud to blind voters and allows manually impaired voters to vote without using their hands.

"We were amazed that a county would knowingly buy a voting system that was inaccessible when there were accessible systems available to them," said James Dickson, vice president for government affairs at the American Association of People with Disabilities in Washington.

Stafford and city lawyers counter that the special equipment was impractical, expensive and untested at the time of implementation but that there are plans to move to the more accessible technology.

"Supervisor John Stafford has complied with the ADA by implementing a plan for a voting system that is readily accessible and usable by voters with disabilities... and is without unlawful burden to them," city attorney Scott Makar argued in court.

It's the first lawsuit of its kind in the country to go to trial. Others settled when elections officials in those cities agreed to purchase equipment to accommodate the disabled voters.

Jacksonville was chosen for the lawsuit because "it is the one large county in Florida that stands out for buying equipment that is inaccessible," said Lois Williams of the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.

Fifty-two of Florida's 67 counties use optical scanners like Duval, but all the major metropolitan counties chose touch screens, except Duval and Orange. In Northeast Florida, only Nassau County uses touch-screen technology.

The evidence will be heard in a non-jury trial by Senior U.S. District Judge Wayne Alley of Oklahoma City, working as a visiting judge in Jacksonville. The trial is expected to last one week.

Williams said plaintiffs want to force Stafford to have the new technology operational by the March 9 presidential preference primary. Federal law requires the equipment to be in place by 2006. Stafford has said in court documents it would cost about $1 million to have one touch screen available in each precinct.

"Our clients ... want to be as independent as they can and know what technology can do," Williams said. "When you go out and buy new stuff, it's like building a new store that's not handicap accessible. That's not acceptable."

Plaintiff Daniel O'Connor said when he and other blind voters show up at the polls, they have to rely on someone else to read their ballots and cast their votes. That's not fair, he said, because other non-disabled voters can cast a secret ballot.

"The technology's there for people to vote independently.... They should be able to do that," said O'Connor, blind since 1991.

City lawyers say Stafford has accommodated disabled voters and none were prevented from voting in local elections in 2002 and 2003. They said the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to structures and ramps, not election equipment that is "an amalgamation of computer hardware [and] software, voting booths and other transitory items." The act has no regulatory guidelines for voting, they argue.

"It is one thing to require a simple, inexpensive curb cut or ramp to a sidewalk that is being altered; it is another to require the substantial and disproportionate cost of ... additional voting technology," Makar said in court documents. "A voting system is not readily understood as a facility under the ADA."

Staff writer Paul Pinkham can be reached at (904) 359-4107 or by email.

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