State, local governments look for ways to comply with HAVA mandates without busting their budget
The Help America Vote Act imposes numerous mandates on states and counties related to the administration of federal elections. Most of these requirements kick in on Jan. 1, 2006.
These mandates include installing electronic voting equipment in every polling place to meet the needs of disabled voters. Right? Wrong. Technically, the federal law requires at least one "direct-recording electronic voting system or other voting system equipped for individuals with disabilities at each polling place."
 Many states are requiring counties to purchase direct-recording electronic voting equipment, which provides a touch screen or other electronic means to record voters’ choices on an electronic ballot, which is then stored in an internal storage medium such as a tape cartridge, diskette or smart card.
Beginning in 2006, federal law also requires such equipment to generate a permanent paper record that is suitable for audit. Other states are purchasing electronic voting equipment that is designed to assist voters with disabilities to mark and then print a paper ballot.
Electronic voting systems that offer an audio capacity for the blind and features that are designed to assist individuals with impaired dexterity are readily available. Such equipment has broad support among organizations representing individuals with disabilities and major vendors are willing to guarantee that their equipment complies with the requirements of the law.
Many state and county officials have cited this vendor guarantee as a major reason for their decision to purchase direct recording electronic equipment. The federal law was deliberately vague to give states the widest possible latitude in implementing voting systems.
However, courts have since permitted lawsuits to proceed on interpretation of the Help America Vote Act, and states and counties are treading cautiously, not certain which systems will eventually be deemed compliant.
Promised federal guidelines are still in development and it is clear that these guidelines, as well as the technology itself, will continue to evolve well after states and counties must make their decisions about purchasing equipment to comply with the law. Electronic voting equipment can cost several thousand dollars per unit.
To reduce the cost of installing this equipment in each polling place, many states and counties are consolidating precincts or conducting elections by mail. However, even jurisdictions that eliminate polling places altogether are meeting the accessibility requirement in HAVA by installing DRE or other electronic voting equipment in one or more locations that are accessible to voters with disabilities on election day.
Regardless, states are permitted to adopt - or allow counties to adopt - a paper-based system, a telephone voting system, or even a combination of election management practices that they determine will meet the needs of individuals with disabilities.
The law leaves specific choices on the voting systems that are implemented with the states, and defines a voting system as the "total combination of mechanical, electromechanical or electronic equipment" as well as "the practices and associated documentation" involved in the election process; it also asserts that voting equipment already in place need not be replaced entirely, but can be modified to meet the requirements of the law.
Telephone voting
Few jurisdictions are bucking the trend toward electronic equipment. Last month, however, Vermont Secretary of State Deb Markowitz announced that voters in her state will soon be able to cast their vote using familiar technology - a standard telephone. The voter will place a call to a secure location, listen to the instructions and recorded ballot choices, then complete and cast the ballot using DTMF tones, the familiar "touch tones" that are generated from pressing the buttons on a telephone. The system then generates a paper ballot, scans it and reads it back to the voter to verify.
Vermont is requiring voters to cast their ballot in their assigned polling place to confirm voter identity and prevent fraud. However, a vote could technically be cast on the system from any telephone in any location.
The secretary of state and the vendor who developed the InspireTM Vote-by-Phone System worked with representatives of people with a variety of disabilities to develop the program. Steve Pouliot, executive director of the Vermont Association of the Blind and the American Foundation for the Blind, is quoted describing it as "an accessible voting system as well as a very easy to use system."
"It is important to me to preserve Vermont’s long-standing tradition of voting by paper ballot," Markowitz said in announcing the contract to purchase the Inspire Vote-by-Phone System. "This system will allow us to do that."
Voters at most polling places in Vermont cast their votes on paper ballots, which pollworkers then count by hand. Voters cast 314,220 ballots statewide in the presidential election in 2004. Vermont is spending $525,000 to purchase the system; annual licensing, maintenance and operating costs are estimated at $110,000.
Kathy DeWolfe, director of elections and campaign finance for the secretary of state, says that she is "on the phone all day answering questions from county and municipal officials." In fact, the response has inspired them to hold a mock election and demonstration of the equipment on Oct. 5. Several county and state officials from elsewhere in the nation are flying to South Burlington, Vt., to participate in the demonstration.
Computerless accessibility?
Ellen Theisen, founder and executive director of VotersUnite!, is a critic of electronic voting who believes that all voting systems should offer a voter-verified paper ballot - a printed ballot that the voter reviews after making his choices, but prior to casting his vote, that serves as the official ballot of record.
After speaking with officials from several rural counties and small municipalities that were resisting all forms of computerized voting - with or without a paper ballot - because of the cost, she became convinced that there had to be a way for disabled voters to mark a paper ballot without using a computer. Since she could not find such a device, she and several colleagues designed a prototype - the "Voting-on-Paper Assistive Device" or V-PAD - and posted a description online at www.votersunite.org/info/v-pad.asp.
The concept is based on the tactile ballot that was originally developed by former Rhode Island Secretary of State Jim Langevin. The tactile ballot uses a paper sleeve into which the ballot is inserted. The paper sleeve indicates, using raised bumps and cutaway sections, where the voter can record his choices for each selection that appears on the ballot. Instructions are provided using an audiotape or other voice recording.
Theisen believes that, with a few modifications and a rubber stamp or mouthstick, the tactile ballot can be adapted for the use of voters with dexterity or motor impairments relatively inexpensively.
Theisen is working with several disabled individuals in developing and testing the concept. One of these individuals is A.J. Devies, the disability chair for Handicapped Adults of Volusia County, an advocacy organization in Florida. Devies, who lost full use of her fingers in a car accident several years ago, is a fan of the model and has been helping to refine the prototype.
Devies cautions, however, that different disabled voters require different accommodations to vote privately and independently. Devies doubts that any single voting system - even a DRE - can provide the opportunity for all voters to vote privately and independently regardless of disability.
Similarly, the modified tactile ballot might not be a "perfect solution" for all individuals with disabilities; for example, she is currently working with Theisen to make it less difficult for a dexterity-impaired voter to cast a ballot for a write-in candidate.
Devies advocates a toolkit approach, in which election officials and voters would have the flexibility to choose from a range of voting systems based on the needs of individuals who vote at that particular polling place. "Technology is changing so quickly these days that, you know, there’s a whole realm of possibilities that can be worked into choices that are available to a supervisor of elections for a county or a state depending on the amount of money that they’re willing to spend on it," said Devies.
She hopes that counties will consider adopting a modified tactile ballot or that the example will spark others to consider innovations of their own. "Maybe what we provide will prompt somebody else to come up with something that works better for them."
(Is your county experimenting "outside the box" with another device or set of management practices to comply with the Help America Vote Act? Let us know. E-mail amclaughlin@naco.org.)
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