[nfbmi-talk] blind voters face problems missippi

[joe harcz Comcast]

Blind voters report headphone problems with machines

 

Audio headphones on machines didn't work; poll worker assistance a violation

 

8:54 PM, Nov 24, 2012   |

 

Written by

 

Emily Lane

 

 

When Ollie Lester, who is legally blind, went to cast her ballot Nov. 6 at Callaway High School in Jackson, the headphones designed to help her vote didn’t

work, she said.

 

Lester said she then got a second pair. The audio worked this time, but the touch screen malfunctioned.

 

“It just started marking without me touching anything,” Lester said.

 

Eventually, Lester reluctantly agreed to allow a poll worker to assist , which is a privacy violation under the the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

 

Three other legally blind voters in Hinds County said they had trouble this year or in the recent past using the equipment designed to help them vote.

 

Disability Rights Mississippi Outreach and Voting Rights Coordinator Shirley Walker said casting a vote independently is something all people are entitled

to do.

 

“Taking part in civic life is one of the most private things we’ll ever do,” Walker said. “It’s nobody else’s business what your choices are.”

 

Hinds County District 1 Election Commissioner Marilyn Avery said poll workers are trained to assist visually impaired voters only if the voter wants the

assistance. Avery said all but one of the machines were working with the audio when tested at Callaway High School and that she hadn’t received any complaints

since Election Day. She said, though, she was not there to know what happened at the precinct.

 

Gwen Byrd, LaShawna Fant and Jan Hawthorne, who are all legally blind, have experienced problems when trying to vote using the audio equipment, which attaches

to the regular voting machines.

 

Hawthorne commended Hinds County for having audio equipment as far back as nearly years ago — before the law mandated it — to help the blind vote independently.

She recalled the first time she was able to vote without assistance.

 

“I voted by myself, and there was nothing like it,” Hawthorne said. “The county did a great job in having them in the first place, but I think (the machines)

are worn out.”

 

Hawthorne said she thinks the audio equipment and touch pad technology need to be replaced.

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Fant said the machines never have worked properly when she’s tried to vote.

 

“With my experience, (poll workers) don’t know how to (fix it) and you have to kind of figure it out,” Fant said.

 

Byrd said she spoke to local contacts with the National Federation of the Blind, who expressed similar problems at the polls.

 

Walker said Disability Rights Mississippi, a nonprofit that operates partially with federal grants, will continue to communicate with the Election Commission

and poll workers to improve the situation.

 

“The problem is...(the disabled) are going through a little bit more than normal to get the polls to cast their vote,” Walker said.

 

When faced with additional obstacles, Walker said, some blind citizens could be discouraged from completing their ballot or doing it privately, especially

if a poll worker faced with a large line of voters rushes to assist the blind voter.

 

“(The poll workers) are not intentionally trying to disenfranchise that voter, but that’s what ends up happening,” Walker said.

 

Pamela Weaver, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi secretary of state, said Hinds County is the only county to use its particular type of voting equipment,

Advanced Voting Solutions with WINvote AVS. Seventy-six of the 82 counties opted to go with a state contract for voting equipment called Diebold/ES&S TSX

Touch Screen voting machine with an optical scanner for absentee, affidavit and emergency ballots and a GEMS tabulation system.

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To contact Emily Lane, call (601) 961-7075. She is @emilymlane on Twitter.

 

Source:

 

 

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20121125/NEWS/311250009/Blind-voters-report-headphone-problems-machines?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CHome%7Cs