[Ohio-talk] Accessible Elections: A Cause for Worry

[mzavoli at roadrunner.com]

Greetings Friends,

Last Thursday, Shawn and I participated on a conference call with Doug Towne, an elections advocate, where he spoke about Cuyahoga County's implementation of a new pollbook system.  Why should we worry?  Because the City Council chose to ignore the disabled and elderly community.  Read why.

Subject: Ohio Cuyahoga County Council votes to ignore accessible voting requirements 
Priority: Normal Date: Friday, May 19, 2017 7:36 AM Size: 11 KB 
 
Colleagues, 
For those of you receiving this information for the first time you should know 
that your email was given to me by Cheryl Fields of the NFB because she believed 
you would be concerned. 
My Name is Doug Towne and I am the Chairman of Disability Relations Group which 
is a disability relations, image management, public policy and social 
Entrepreneur development and consulting firm. 
What does all that mean. I'm an advocate just like you. I have spent the last 17 
years working on accessible voting among other issues. 
This email concerns actions being taken in Ohio that put in jeopardy accessible 
voting for people with disabilities and the elder community. 
I visited Cleveland the week of May 8--12 because I found that the Cuyahoga 
County Council was considering accepting a contract to buy an inaccessible poll 
book or voter check in system. 
The pending contract that was discussed by the Council is with Tenex. This is 
for a poll book which is a system through which voters check in to identify 
themselves to vote. 
They may tell you that their system is accessible and I agree it could be 
because they typically use an iPad mini on a stand that flips back and forth 
between the poll worker and the voter. Since Apple products are accessible the 
only issue is whether the software running on it was created to also be 
accessible and it was not designed to be. 
As I told the County Council Tenex either is ignoring both the Help America Vote 
Act and Title II of the ADA which require that the entire election system be 
accessible. This includes poll books. 
If they are not ignoring the law then they don't understand it which is even 
more scary. 
When questioned privately about accessibility it has been said that Tenex is 
waiting for the feds to provide additional funding before they do anything about 
it. What this means is that access should wait for the money and we all know 
that is not how civil rights work. 
I believe this means that Tenex knows that eventually the state and county will 
be told they have to make their system accessible and then Tenex will be happy 
to sell them an expensive upgrade. 
The State of Ohio through the Secretary of States office has certified a number 
of poll book systems with out requiring accessibility. I find this remarkable 
since just last year they lost a legal challenge over inaccessible absentee 
voting systems. 
Only one of the systems has worked to build a system platform that can expand to 
include accessibility. This is the VOTEC Designed for All system. In the 
interest of full disclosure I work with VOTEC on accessibility. This is not 
about VOTEC though. This is about the state and county doing what the law 
requires so all the companies have to put forward an accessible product. It is 
about a level playing field for people with disabilities and elders as well. 
The County for its part also failed to require or apparently even consider 
accessibility in their process to identify a new poll book system. I base this 
statement on the 89 full color report which does not even mention accessibility 
or the disability/elder communities. 
 
Choosing such a system will push accessibility to the back again and then the 
county will claim an economic hardship when pressed on the subject later. "We 
already spent the money." 
The county could have required accessibility, but simply didn't. 
They may point to the funding circumstances in 2002 under the Help America Vote 
Act, but we all know those were unusual and involved the replacement of the 
entire nations election system. 
Besides the traditional disability and deaf communities I include the elder 
population in my concerns because if not considered many older citizens will 
find these new systems difficult to work with. 
The disability and elder communities should speak out on this situation and stop 
another mistake from happening. 
 
Cuyahoga County Council meetings are held every other week on Tuesday from 5 to 
7 pm. 
People sign up to speak by entering the chambers before 5 where they sign up and 
specify their topic. 
People wishing to speak on agenda items get to speak at the start of the 
meeting. This would be the time when the contract for this new voter check in 
system should be addressed. 
The consideration of this contract was supposed to have a third hearing date on 
the 23rd of May. In what I believe is an extraordinary move the Council used a 
emergency rule of some kind to advance the vote and passed it unanimously 
following my addressing the issue before them. 
I'm not sure what the emergency was accept for the fact that they had been 
caught intending to discriminate against people with disabilities, the deaf and 
elders. 
At this point we must rally and move to stop this. This is your community and I 
am only here to assist. It is my hope that the various disability groups I met 
with along with others including elder advocates will come together and launch a 
campaign to force the county and state to think again. 
I offer what ever support you feel is appropriate. Technical advice based on my 
years of working on accessible voting. Logistical support in the form of 
conference call lines, materials, training or presentations. What ever I can do 
to help. This is not about one company it is about the state and county 
following the law so all the companies have to do so as well. If we come 
together to stop the county then perhaps the state will decide that another 
legal battle over accessibility is not in the publics best interest and choose 
to revise the poll book requirements. 
Please advise how I may be of assistance. Time is wasting. We must move to 
protest quickly to stop the contract from being fully implemented. 
 
 
Appreciatively, 
Douglas George Towne (Doug) 
Chairman 
Disability Relations Group 
727-452-8132 
dougt at drgglobal.com
 
 
www.drgglobal.com
 
Quar Cur Non 
Why Not 
 
References 
 
Aldo Tesi CEO Election Systems and Software 
aldo at essvote.com
 
Billy W. Altom  CEO APRIL 
bwaltom at sbcglobal.net
 
David Eggers Pinellas County Commissioner 
cpointe88 at aol.com
 
Dean Doulou CEO Partners In Business Inc 
dean at doulou.com
 
Donald Ward VP Hewlett Packard 
dgward14 at gmail.com
 
Kelly Buckland ED National Council on Independent Living 
kelly at ncil.org
 
Mariano Tan CEO Prosodica Systems 
mariano.tan at prosodica.com
 
Sue Buchholtz CEO Evergreen Life Services 
sue.buchholtz at evergreenls.org
 
 John Medcalf CEO VOTEC Corporation 
john.medcalf at votec.net