Touch-screen voting better choice

By DOUG HALL
Community Voices    June 28, 2005

Two opinions that dealt with accessible voting in Volusia County appeared in The News-Journal on June 22. I take issue with both. In the editorial, "Stand firm, Diebold deal wrong for Volusia," the writer emphasized that the system needs to be voter verifiable and said that this is not the case with the touch-screen system. I disagree with that statement, because the system verbally lets the print-impaired voter wearing the headphones know what votes he cast and the screen shows a recap of votes cast for those with sight. This certainly does meet the intent of the Help America Vote Act, and it meets the requirements of Florida's certification process as being "independently voter verifiable."

It sounds like the writer of this editorial is trying to get the County Council to vote in opposition to what the national and state laws mandate. Whether we like or agree with a law, we are obligated to comply with it, the County Council even more so! Unless or until state or federal laws are altered, to require different or additional features, we will obey them.

I admit that Direct Recording Electronic voting machines aren't perfect, but neither is voting with a paper ballot. In fact, numerous reports clearly indicate that problems and errors are much higher with paper than with the touch screen machines. People make mistakes and lots of them, whether while marking, checking or recounting paper ballots. It is much more difficult to make a permanent mistake on DRE units.

For several years, people with disabilities have been working to achieve our civil rights. We now have the technology to enable us to cast our vote in private, as most other Americans have for years. Some people, including The News Journal's editorial board, seem to feel that holding a piece of paper is more important than equal access. Fear does not justify refusal to obey the law, nor does it give anyone permission to interfere with civil rights!

Second, in the Devies commentary, "Touch screen not best choice for disabled voters," the writer claimed that the Diebold unit cannot be used by people with some physical disabilities. She is partially correct, in that all machines, as well as paper ballots, have limitations. However, the Diebold unit can be accessed by using a mouth or head stick to depress the buttons. She also asserts that the Diebold unit isn't as accessible as the AutoMark, which was examined by a small group of mostly blind users last year and found to be appropriate. The group missed one important detail, the fact that it discriminates against people with dexterity-related disabilities. She further says that the AutoMark does have a "sip/puff" switch, which makes it more useable than the Diebold. If she checks how the AutoMark works, she will find that the voter must be able to feed the paper ballot into the machine, then remove and it into the tabulating unit. I suggest that the AutoMark is less accessible than the Diebold unit for people with disabilities other than visual impairment.

I do agree, however, that people with disabilities have the same right to vote privately as anyone else, mandated by law.

Hall serves on Volusia County's elections advisory board and is an activist for the rights of people with disabilities.