STATE: Counties to receive voice command voting machines

By The Associated Press

GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) The State Election Commission will install electronic voting machines with voice commands for the blind in the 10 counties that currently use punch card machines.

Election officials expect to choose the company to provide the machines by early April.

"You think it's a minor thing, but it's something we fought for over the years," said Darren Burton of the American Foundation for the Blind.

Burton, who lost his sight 11 years ago, tests and writes about technology developed for the blind.
 

South Carolina Commission for the Blind director Nell Carney applauded the prospect of new machines.

Carney, who has an inherited condition that began robbing her of her sight at age 16, said it's an invasion of privacy to bring another person into the voting booth.

"The person who went with me last time, I happen to know he is of a different persuasion politically than I am," she said.

Carney estimated that following the national average, South Carolina's population of 4 million people has about 15,000 legally blind residents. Their vision can be corrected only to 20/200 or they have lost all peripheral vision.

Out of the state's 46 counties, 24 currently have electronic voting machines and another 12 use an optical scan sheet where voters fill in a bubble with a pencil or pen. The remaining 10 counties use the punch cards.

The State Election Commission plans to replace all the state's voting machines with new electronic machines by 2006. At a cost of about $3,500 each, the total will be about $36 million.

Burton said some electronic voting machines are more friendly to the visually impaired than others. He has tested five systems and found that blind voters prefer those that use familiar technology such as a telephone keypad.

"All those five have speech output to guide visually impaired voters," he said. "The distinctive line is usability. Voters only use them once or twice a year, so they have to be intuitive and easy to use."

He also looked for machines that let voters set their own pace one company gave voters only 5 seconds to think about each candidate. Another used synthetic speech which is difficult for some voters to understand, Burton said.

One system lets voters call ahead of time and hear the ballot.

Greenville County teacher Carol Randolph, who has been blind since birth, teaches her visually impaired middle and high school students how to use technology to adapt to the visual world. She says the s were a long time coming.

"The technology for speech is not that expensive," she said. "It's a little chip."

She uses software on her computer that speaks what's on-screen. The computer has a printer and a Braille-embossing machine. A scanner also takes in printed words and reads them aloud from the computer.

"The point of our program, when our kids come out, they won't have problems using voting machines, ATM machines or any other adaptive technology," she said.