Visually impaired voters to receive help

It's a voting machine that will tell a voter everything but whom to pick.Vigo County got its first look Tuesday at a new touch-screen voting machine that will enable visually impaired voters to vote at their polling place without direct assistance.They'll receive voting instructions from the machine itself and use a variety of shaped keys to record their choices.

Election Systems and Software manufactures all the county's voting equipment.Its regional sales manager Robb McGinnis said the new machine gives a voter two options: to select a screen on which the voter simply touches the candidate's name, or a recorded system that allows the voter to get cues from the machine itself about individual races and which buttons to push to cast a vote.

The machine also has Braille information along the lower edge to assist voters who can read that language. Voters using the recorded system will not have visual cues on the screen.“Poll workers can usually just stand aside and wait to see if there is any problem,” McGinnis said.The recorded message begins with a summary of all the races available for that voter, and then leads a voter through each of the races, giving the voter a chance to vote, or move on to the next candidate.

The system also allows the voter to change a vote cast in error, and reviews all the choices before asking the voter to make the final decision to cast the ballot.One touch-screen voting machine will be placed in each voting place, and will be available to all voters if they choose.

Modern voting: Robb McGinnis of Election Systems & Software discusses the capabilities of the new touch-screen voting machines Tuesday during a demonstration for members of the Vigo County Clerk's Office in the Vigo County Annex. (Tribune-Star/Joseph C. Garza)
The county's optical scan voting machines, new to the county in 2002, remain.“Most of your votes will be cast on the optical scan system,” McGinnis said.The optical scan machines will have the paper ballot available at the end of the day.

The new-touch screen machines do not, McGinnis said. It will only produce a printout of the votes cast on it. The votes cast on it will be kept on a cartridge that will be counted at the courthouse, adding another layer of recordkeeping for election officials.“Just a little more difficult having two systems rather than one,” said Pat Mansard, Vigo County clerk.She said the new machines are part of the county's upgrade into compliance with new state and federal rules. One of the new rules meant the replacement of the county's punch card system.

“We had gotten our money's worth out of that system,” Mansard said. “Because of the events in Florida [during the 2000 presidential election], everyone was required to get a new voting system.”The optical scan system was introduced in Vigo County in 2002. The system cost the county almost $1.4 million, with $348,000 having been reimbursed to county taxpayers.The Help Americans Vote Act of 2002 placed additional requirements on local election officials, Mansard said, including making voting more accessible.

The new touch-screen system is an effort to meet that new law's requirements.New state rules also are scheduled to take effect, including identification requirements at the polls, which may force some voters to come back to the clerk with an acceptable I.D.The new systems and laws will change the way the county does business.“We won't have official results as quick as we're used to,” Mansard said. The optical scan machines have an ability to send the results via modem that the touch screen machines do not, she said.

At the same time, voters who cast a ballot and have to return with identification will be provisional voters until their identity can be verified, she said. It could delay official results by as much as a week.“It's a lot more complicated than it used to be,” Mansard said.“All locations around the country will have the same challenges,” McGinnis said.Vigo County has spent more than $1.8 million on new election systems since the fall 2000 election. A breakdown of what has been spent:--Almost $1.4 million on an optical scan system for which voters fill in ovals on a paper ballot and feed the finished ballot into a counting machine.

About $350,000 of that purchase has been reimbursed.--More than $457,000 paid for 95 new touch-screen machines that will allow visually impaired voters a chance to vote at their polling place without direct assistance. The state will be reimbursing most of that cost, said Vigo County Clerk Pat Mansard.