Voting Devices for Disabled Draw Praise From All Sides

URL for this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/14/
nyregion/14handicapped.html

By SEWELL CHAN
Published: September 14, 2006

Epilepsy has long made it difficult for Marvin Wasserman to vote. After all, taking in all the different races, which New York State generally requires to be displayed on a single ballot, is challenging even for people without a neurological disorder.

So Mr. Wasserman, 61, expressed delight on Tuesday when he was able for the first time to vote by touching a computer screen, part of a special ballot-marking device that New York State is using this year — and only this year — as an interim step to comply with a federal law that requires modernization of election equipment and easier access to voting by people with disabilities.

The change was one of the few New York has made in its effort to comply with the law, the Help America Vote Act of 2002, and many have criticized the state's response as sluggish.

The 22 voting machines for the handicapped have been placed at five locations, one in each borough, which critics say forces handicapped voters to travel long distances to vote. The goal is to have an accessible machine at every polling place by 2007 or 2008.

The New York City Board of Elections said yesterday that 580 voters used the ballot-marking devices to vote in the primary election. The greatest number was recorded in Queens (154), followed by Brooklyn (126), the Bronx and Manhattan (125 each) and Staten Island (50).

The board's executive director, John A. Ravitz, said the machines appeared to have worked properly. "It is the start of what is going to be a sea change — for the board and for the voters — as we move toward new voting systems," he said.

The new voting procedure was monitored on Tuesday by the City Council, the United States Department of Justice and the Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York, an advocacy group that has pressed the state to comply more quickly with the federal law.

Despite the close scrutiny, exit interviews suggested that many, perhaps most, of the people who used the devices were not disabled.

Some nondisabled people evidently misunderstood notices alerting them to the devices and showed up at the five special polling places (the notices were mailed to the city's 4.3 million registered voters). Others were directed there from their local polling places because of problems with their registration. And still others just wandered in off the street, apparently unaware that they were stumbling on an effort oriented toward disabled people.

"I'd anticipated a mad rush that never materialized," said Gregory C. Soumas, one of the 10 commissioners who sit on the elections board. Mr. Soumas had arrived at 5 a.m. Tuesday at 200 Varick Street in Manhattan, one of the special polling sites.

Tal Beery, 22, wandered in after wondering whether he was properly registered to vote because he had lived in the Netherlands recently. He said the ballot-marking device was easier to use than an A.T.M. or an airport ticket kiosk. Better access for the disabled is "a great benefit to our democracy," he said.

In addition to the touch screens, voters using the devices could make their selections by "sipping" or "puffing" air using a straw; pressing flat plastic shapes attached to the corners of a keyboard; and pressing a foot pedal on the floor.

The straw, in particular, drew puzzled looks. "What is this, a Breathalyzer?" asked Mark Kassen, 34, when he first sat down at the device.

Mr. Kassen opted to use the touch screen, and afterward, he had only praise. "It was so clear and simple," he said. He plans to return in November to use the machine again.

Franca Barchiesi, 52, an artist who has dyslexia, said the touch screen was a more logical, comfortable method, regardless of whether a voter is disabled. "I like the physical, tactile aspect of it," she said. "You're voting for people, so there's an interesting instinct to touch their names. I feel less certain about using the keyboard. There's an anxiety about pressing the wrong key."

After Mr. Wasserman, the voter who has epilepsy, made his selections, an ink-jet printer hooked up to the machine produced a paper ballot. He placed it in an envelope and then inserted the envelope into a cardboard box.

The process may have seemed old-fashioned, but he did not mind. "I was able to cast each vote separately, and the machine told me when I was finished," he marveled. "I think that's a great feature."

Rebecca Cathcart contributed reporting.

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