Foot-dragging by state on voting booths leaves county clerks in lurch

 By Robert Ireland    Fon Du Lac Reporter    03 July 2005

With approximately five months until federal law will require every municipality in Wisconsin to have voting booths with handicapped accessibility, the state has not yet approved a single piece of specialized voting equipment.

The Help America Vote Act will allow anyone with a disability to vote without assistance and aims to accommodate the blind, those who use wheelchairs and the hearing impaired.

However, until the state approves the equipment, municipalities can?t purchase the specialized voting booths.

?The county clerks are waiting for direction ? well, at least I am,? said Karen Gibson, county clerk for Dodge County.

Gibson said that she has informed municipalities in Dodge County that requirements have changed and they will need to their equipment by Jan. 1, 2006.

?I don?t know if it?s going to be possible to do in the next six months,? she said.

Needed by February primary

The first election in Fond du Lac County affected by these changes is the primary on Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2006.

?They passed the legislation without having the equipment developed,? said County Executive Allen Buechel. ?They may have trouble with the spring elections.?

However, Buechel thinks that the equipment will be available in time for the February election.

Gibson said she has questioned the State Elections Board and asked if the equipment will be available on time.

?There?s a lot of questions that have no answers,? Gibson said. ?I think it would be better for everybody if they pushed this back a year or two.?

Federal standards

Kevin Kennedy, executive director of the State Elections Board, said that he has been waiting for voting equipment to pass federal standards before allowing municipalities to purchase the equipment.

The State Elections Board has placed a deadline of Friday, July 8, for vendors to apply to have their equipment approved. Currently, one vendor in the state has put in an application for approval of voting machines while another vendor is expected to apply before the deadline.

Two other vendors have worked in the state in the past and also may apply to have their equipment approved.

On Wednesday, Aug. 3, the staff of the State Elections Board will recommend to approve equipment for use. Municipalities could purchase the equipment soon after that.

There is a concern that the equipment may not be ready in time for the next election, Kennedy said.

?We?re moving forward as best we can,? he said. ?There is some practical consideration. Every state in the country is in the same boat.?

If the equipment isn?t available in time, the Department of Justice will have to take it into consideration at a national level, Kennedy said.

Voting machines expensive

It is estimated that it will cost approximately $5,000 for each new piece of voting equipment. It isn?t clear how much of that cost will fall on individual municipalities and how much the state would cover.

?It?s going to be very expensive,? Gibson said. ?The cost of voting is becoming very expensive.?

Gibson questions the need for the reform in small villages. She said there are a couple of towns in Dodge County with populations of about 300 people and thinks its unnecessary for those villages to have d machines.

Gibson wonders if the groups and individuals that pushed for changes in voting regulations would feel so strongly if they understood the cost of the new equipment.

Alice Parman has been a poll worker in the city of Fond du Lac for 15 years and has never witnessed any problems with accessibility for handicapped individuals.

?Once we had to go outside with a ballot, and that wasn?t a problem,? Parman said.

Donna Handly, a poll worker at the Westnor Apartments for the last five years, said she has never seen a problem with voter accessibility.

?At the Westnor Apartments, a lot of those people are handicapped and in wheelchairs,? Handly said. ?They have a lower voting booth for those in wheelchairs.?