Blind voters challenge Volusia

By Kevin P. Connolly | Orlando Sentinel
Posted July 6, 2005

DeLAND A leading national advocacy group for the blind, its Florida affiliate and five blind residents from Volusia County filed a federal suit Tuesday in the first legal challenge sparked by the County Council's refusal to buy disability-accessible touch-screen voting machines.

The National Federation of the Blind, National Federation of the Blind of Florida and the five blind voters Kathy Davis, J.D. Townsend, Chad Buckins, Peter Cerullo and Ryan Mann launched the battle less than a week after council members rejected a contract to purchase 210 touch-screens from Diebold Election Systems.

The suit, which was expected, seeks to force the county to purchase touch-screens the only equipment certified in Florida for the visually impaired to vote independently as specified under a state law requiring one accessible device per voting location for elections after July 1.

City elections in Volusia, thought to be the only county in Florida to reject a contract for touch-screens, are set for Oct. 11.

"We just want our civil right to vote independent and in private," Davis, an Ormond Beach resident and president of the National Federation of the Blind in Florida, said Tuesday from Louisville, Ky.

That's where the National Federation of the Blind, a nonprofit with more than 50,000 members, is holding its 65th annual national convention and where news of the lawsuit was welcomed with "wild cheers and applause," James Gashel, executive director for strategic initiatives for the organization.

Federation President Marc Maurer announced the legal action, filed electronically Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Orlando, in front of roughly 3,000 attendees listening to his presidential report, Gashel said.

"This is hugely important for us," Gashel said from Louisville. "Now that the technology exists [for the visually disabled to cast] a secret ballot, we just insist that it has to be used, and it is the law."

All plaintiffs but one live in Ormond Beach, said Davis, a licensed mental-health counselor at Daytona Beach Community College.

Buckins, a Port Orange resident, is a DBCC student, she said. Mann recently graduated from DBCC and is planning to attend the University of South Florida in Tampa, Davis said. She said Cerullo works in the Orientation and Adjustment Center at the Division of Blind Services office in Daytona Beach.

Townsend, vice president of the Greater Daytona Beach Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Florida and a board member of the state affiliate, is a licensed social worker for Halifax Medical Center.

Doug Towne, a disability consultant for the state Division of Elections, predicted that Tuesday's suit is "just the beginning" of the legal fallout both sides expected would follow after a majority of council members voted against the machines June 29.

Before council members voted against the machines, they said they were concerned about degrading voter confidence by adding devices that don't produce paper ballots that can be double-checked for recounts.

A message for County Attorney Dan Eckert, who strongly urged council members to buy touch-screens to supplement the existing paper-based system of optical scanners, wasn't immediately returned Tuesday.

County Chairman Frank Bruno, who joined three other council members to oppose paperless touch-screens, said he had not seen the lawsuit as of Tuesday afternoon.

"The only thing I can say is I kind of expected it," Bruno said. "We knew were going to get sued one way or another on this issue."

Bruno said he has been working hard at coming up with some alternative he may present to County Council members as early as Thursday, their next regularly scheduled meeting.

He declined to offer specifics, saying he's still trying to work out the details.

"I would hope we could put something in place that would resolve the conflict down the road," said Bruno, who said he's striving to come up with a voting system that could become "a model for the state of Florida."

No hearings were scheduled for the federal suit as of Tuesday. The suit names as defendants the county and Elections Supervisor Ann McFall, whose request for touch-screens was denied by council members.

McFall's attorney, Diego "Woody" Rodriguez, said having McFall named as a defendant is a procedural step because of her official role as elections supervisor, and it should streamline the legal challenge.

"Time is nearly out to implement the new machines in time for the next election," the suit said. "It will take approximately ten weeks to program accessible voting machines, train Volusia County Department of Elections staff and pollworkers how to use them, and educate the public."

The suit alleges the council's vote violates the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, a section of the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1974 and the new state law requiring compliance for elections after July 1.

A federal law requires accessible machines for elections after Jan. 1.

"Every jurisdiction in the United States can look at Volusia County and see what's going to happen to them if they don't get their accessible voting machines by Jan. 1, 2006," said Martin H. Schreiber II, a partner with the Baltimore-based law firm Brown, Goldstein & Levy, for the NFB.