[NJTechDiv] Blind and low-vision voters hail Massachusetts’ new statewide online voting option

[Mario Brusco]

https://www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2022/10/28/blind-and-low-vision-voters-hail-massachusetts-new-statewide-online-voting-option 
Kim

Charlson speaks at an event at the Perkins School for the Blind. 
Charlson first voted electronically in 2021 and plans to do so again in 
the midterm elections.

Courtesy of Kim Charlson

By Meghan Smith

October 28, 2022

To vote in this year’s election, Watertown resident Kim Charlson won’t 
need to go to her polling place, print out a ballot or sign any forms. 
Charlson, who is blind, plans to take advantage of a new voting system 
for people with disabilities that allows them to cast their ballot 
electronically through a secure web portal.

The option was available in five cities last year: Boston, Cambridge, 
Quincy, Watertown and Worcester. It is now permanently available 
statewide, thanks to a lesser-known provision in the VOTES Act passed in 
June, which aimed to make voting in the state overall easier by 
permanently offering mail-in voting for all Massachusetts voters and 
expanding early voting. Advocates say, in many ways, it puts 
Massachusetts at the forefront of accessible voting as one of just a 
handful of states now allowing the electronic option for disabled 
voters. Once they apply, voters using the new method can cast their 
ballot electronically early or before polls close on Election Day at 8 
p.m. on Nov. 8.

“I'm just delighted at the ease of voting, and the privacy of being able 
to do it independently and submit my ballot and know I'm all set,” said 
Charlson, executive director of the Perkins Library at Perkins School 
for the Blind, who first used the new system last year. “It makes me 
feel good about the democratic process.”

Charlson remembers that when she first voted at age 18, her best option 
was to have a friend or poll worker join her in the voting booth to help 
fill out a ballot. She and other advocates say having more voting 
options — from secure web voting, to mail-in ballots, to accessible 
machines at polling places — are a big step forward for disabled people.

“I think the disability community takes it [voting] very seriously 
because we had to kind of fight the fights to get to have the 
opportunity to vote privately and independently,” Charlson said.

In 2020, the Disability Law Center partnered with the Bay State Council 
of the Blind and the Boston Center for Independent Living to sue the 
state over lack of accommodations made for disabled people to vote 
safely and securely during the pandemic. Secretary of State Bill Galvin 
settled the lawsuit right before the election to allow disabled voters 
to vote electronically.

But during the 2020 election, voters with disabilities who chose the 
electronic method still needed a printer and had to physically sign the 
ballot. Advocates pushed for the option to last beyond that single year 
and worked with the secretary of state’s office to make it even more 
accessible.

“We wanted to get away from mail-in because once you're dealing with 
hard copy anything, then it's not accessible for blind people,” 
explained David Kingsbury, president of Bay State Council of the Blind. 
“Somebody is going to have to fill it out. Somebody is going to have to 
print it, somebody is going to have to put it in the mail and so on.”

To use the new system, the voter fills out an application on the 
secretary of state’s website, verifying their voter registration status 
and certifying that they have a disability. The application, due Nov. 1 
by 5 p.m., then goes to the town’s election official, who sends two 
separate emails back to the voter — one with a PIN and one with the 
ballot that can be accessed through a secure web portal. The voter uses 
their own screen reading technology to independently fill out the 
accessible ballot at home. The platform has been tested on more than 90 
combinations of screen readers and web browsers.

Kingsbury, who is blind, was impressed by how smoothly it went last year 
in the five municipalities during the off-year elections. He plans to 
vote electronically in Stoughton this November.

“Overall experience has been extremely positive,” Kingsbury said. “I 
think for something being put in place the first time, it's worked 
incredibly smoothly.”

Janet Murphy, the town clerk for Watertown, helped implement the new 
system last year. Six people used the system in 2021, and she told GBH 
News so far eight applications have come in for 2022. Murphy said the 
town spent under $2,000 to get it up and running with the help of 
Democracy Live, a voting technology company. Both Murphy and Charlson 
say they’re actively working to spread the word about the new option.

“It made complete sense to me, especially given that Perkins School for 
the Blind is here in Watertown,” she said.

Offering the electronic option “couldn’t be easier” for town election 
workers, she said. “It’s not cumbersome ... it’s very straightforward.”

Massachusetts is the fourth state in the nation to enact such a program 
for voters with disabilities, following West Virginia, Colorado and 
North Carolina. It’s the same technology that some states use to allow 
overseas military members to vote.

“This is not purely a blue state type of thing,” Kingsbury said.

“I think the disability community takes it [voting] very seriously 
because we had to kind of fight the fights to get to have the 
opportunity to vote privately and independently.”

-Kim Charlson, Perkins Library executive director

In addition to the electronic option, disabled voters can also use the 
options available to every voter in the state: they can vote early, vote 
by mail or vote at their polling place on Election Day. Every location 
is required to have an AutoMark machine to enable accessible voting, and 
every polling place itself must be accessible for people with physical 
disabilities through ramps and accessible parking spots.

Rachel Tanenhaus, executive director of Cambridge Commission for Persons 
with Disabilities, is glad to have options. In 2020, she used the 
electronic vote system because she didn’t want to risk getting exposed 
to COVID-19. This year she plans to vote at her polling place in Malden.

“Not everybody is voting online. And I like voting in person,” she said, 
noting that not all disabled people are proficient with assistive 
technology. “When there are not 10 million accessibility barriers, it's 
actually pretty cool to do. ... The important point is that you have 
that choice.”

Tanenhaus, who has low vision, can use an AutoMark machine to increase 
the size of the ballot text, increase the contrast and use tactile 
raised buttons or Braille to fill out her ballot privately.

Occasionally she has encountered problems with such machines: it wasn’t 
plugged in, the poll worker didn’t know how to use it or the machine was 
faced outward so that everyone could see her ballot. There are also 
transportation accessibility challenges getting to polling places, such 
as navigating public transportation and weather like rain, ice and snow 
that makes it harder for people with mobility devices or who are blind 
to get around.

Even with the occasional obstacle, she enjoys voting in person and says 
technology has improved access.

“The experience is so much better,” she said. “I don't have to have 
panic attacks when I go vote anymore, because it's just really important 
to me — just like it's really important to you and a lot of other people 
to be able to vote.”

For Kingsbury, the success of the new secure electronic voting system 
indicates a future where voting access is expanded for everyone — not 
just people with disabilities.

“This really goes beyond disability,” he said. “I mean, this is the 21st 
century. We do pretty much everything else by internet. ... And I just 
sort of think, in the future, this is really something that should 
hopefully be adopted by many states for all varieties of voters.”

The deadline to submit an application for Accessible Vote By Mail is 
Tuesday, Nov. 1 at 5 p.m.

* Meghan Smith @meghansmith55

Senior Producer, writing, editing and producing local news.