Blind voter able to cast secret ballot

Electronic voting machine equipped for handicapped now available

By JOHN MARTIN Courier & Press staff writer 464-7594 or jmartin@evansville.net
April 6, 2004

Rob Kerney called the experience "quite exhilarating."

For the first time since Kerney lost his eyesight, he voted in an election Monday morning with no one knowing his choices.

Kerney cast the first absentee vote in the May 4 Democratic primary using an electronic voting machine equipped for disabled people. He slipped on headphones, and a computerized voice read him the list of candidates in the primary.

He voted by using three buttons. Two of those buttons move the voter through the list of candidates. Selections are made by using the other, diamond-shaped button.

Under the old punch-card system, the sight-impaired had to reveal their choices to poll workers, who would then punch the ballots.

"I was kind of excited," Kerney said Monday after voting on the new machine. "For the first time in 13 years I got to cast a secret ballot."

Absentee voting for the primary election officially began Monday at the county Election Office, Room 214 of the Civic Center. Under an Indiana law that took effect last year, any registered voter can vote absentee during business hours at the Election Office prior to the election.

The office is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. It will close this Friday, in observance of Good Friday. The office will also be open for voting on the two Saturdays prior to the election, April 24 and May 1.

County Clerk Marsha Abell invited local elected officials to the Election Office on Monday to be among the first to vote on the new machines. County Councilman Lloyd Winnecke, who was among the few to show up, was the first Republican primary voter.

The touch-screen machines manufactured by Election Systems & Software are not certified according to federal government standards. However, Vanderburgh and other counties with the same machines have been given state clearance to use them for the primary.

Three Indiana counties used the machines in last November's election. Election officials were under the impression that the machines were certified, but they were not. That led to a rebuke from the Indiana Election Commission, which ordered the company to post a $10 million bond to cover the cost of any future elections that might be botched.

Locally, demonstrations of the machines are alleviating the concerns that some people have about them, according to Abell.

"People are pretty skeptical until they use them and play around with them for a while," Abell said. For the primary election, voters will, as always, tell precinct workers which party's ballot they want. The precinct worker will then put a cartridge in the machine, and the appropriate party's candidates will appear on the screen.

The voter s by touching a candidate's name. That candidate's name then lights up. The voter moves on by hitting a red "next screen" button.

After the voter has seen all the races, he then sees a list of all the candidates he ed. He can then go back and change a vote if he wishes. The choices are locked in by pressing a "vote" button at the top of the screen.