[nfbwatlk] iPad Voting Could Help People with Disabilities, KEZI 9 ABC, November 8 2011

[Nightingale, Noel]

Link:
http://kezi.com/page/230003

Text:
iPad Voting Could Help People with Disabilities
November 8, 2011
By Kate Renner

EUGENE, Ore. -- Oregon has always been a pioneer in making voting easier.

The state swapped out the polls for mail-in ballots and now a new idea is being tested in five Oregon counties for their special elections: casting your vote by iPad.

But it's not meant for the tech-savvy.  The tablet is actually geared toward helping disabled voters.

Soon with the swipe of a finger, voters with visual disabilities will see their candidate choices up close, or for those with hearing impairments a recording could read the names aloud.

"Allow them to vote independently and with little assistance if they chose to vote in that manner," said Lane County Clerk Cheryl Betschart.

Currently, Lane County offers laptops for voters with visual and hearing impairments.

"They have not been very easy to use. They're difficult and heavy, and adapting them to the different types of needs of each individual is difficult for election officials," Betschart said.

Each ballot is then printed and still needs to be mailed to the election office, but Betschart predicts some day touch screens could replace paper altogether.

"Certainly if you don't have to print something and mail it in, there's some cost savings there and I can definitely see down the road that be utilized for all voters," Betschart said.

But Lane Community College political science professor Steve Candee says not so fast.

He's afraid if the voting system is ever put on the web, there'd be toomuch temptation for fraud.

"If we don't have a paper trail for the touch screen technology, they're just assuming that their vote is going to be counted correctly," Candee said.

But for now Betschart hopes the new technology will welcome voters with other disabilities.

"Quadriplegics and paraplegics, they can hook their own equipment into the iPad, so hopefully it will expand and make them more comfortable as well," Betschart said.

Apple donated the five iPads for the pilot program, which runs through next January's Special Election.

Oregon would need at least 72 iPads to bring two to each county.  That would cost the state at least $36,000 plus the cost of portable printers.