Lawsuit claims Shelley, four Calif. counties denied voting rights to disabled

CHRIS T. NGUYEN, Associated Press Writer

Monday, March 8, 2004
 (03-08) 14:13 PST LOS ANGELES (AP)

Disabled voters and three advocacy groups on Monday sued California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley and four counties, alleging they violated federal and state laws by failing to provide touchscreen services for those most in need.

Eleven disabled voters were joined by the American Association of People with Disabilities, the California Council of the Blind Inc., and California Foundation for Independent Living Centers in the lawsuit filed in federal court.

They demanded that disabled voters have access to voting services in the November election unlike the March 2 primary where they needed help from other people to cast their ballot.

"The point of this lawsuit is to remedy the violations of federal law that occurred on March 2 and make sure they don't happen again this November," attorney John McDermott said.

Shelley's office hadn't seen the lawsuit but maintained that it has worked closely with the disabled community.

"As to the larger issue, Secretary Shelley is committed to the goal of implementing fully accessible voting systems in every polling place in California, and has moved the state steadily toward that goal while preserving the integrity of and confidence in the voting process," Shelley's spokesman Doug Stone said.

The lawsuit names Shelley and Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and Santa Barbara counties, where the largest population of disabled people live, McDermott said.

The lawsuit alleges that disabled voters should receive equal services under the American Disabilities Act. The four counties did not provide touchscreen services to disabled voters because of a directive in November from Shelley that states all California counties would be required by July 2005 to install voting machines that produce paper printouts, according to the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs allege their rights were violated because existing machines used by disabled voters do not produce a paper trail.

"I want to emphasize that this is not about whether a paper trail is a good thing or a bad thing in the future. It's about the fact that no such thing exists," said Arlene Mayerson, an attorney with the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.

McDermott said there are voting machines available that are equipped to handle disabled voters and that counties should have enough time to install them by the November election.

Disabled voters said they were upset they weren't allowed to vote in private and had to rely on relatives or friends to help them cast their ballot.

"We really enjoyed the ability to vote independently and privately for the first time in our lives. Now that's been taken away from us," said Dan Kysor, who is blind and governmental affairs director for the California Council of the Blind.

Touchscreen voting posed problems for other voters during last week's state primary election.

In San Diego County, touchscreens made by Diebold Inc. failed to boot properly, causing delays up to two hours and forcing some voters to cast paper ballots at other polling places. The computer glitch affected between 10 percent and 15 percent of the county's 1,611 precincts, county spokesman Mike Workman said.

In San Bernardino County, registrar Scott Konopasek said the computer program took much longer to load than officials had expected. After running absentee results, hours passed without any more ballots being counted.