Verified Voting Statement on Disability Access to Voting Systems

http://www.verifiedvoting.org/article.php?id=1875
Disability Access to Voting Systems

Statement on Disability Access to Voting Systems: Accessible and Verifiable Voting for Everyone

The Verified Voting Foundation and VerifiedVoting.org defend the right of every citizen to vote including disabled citizens.

We insist that by 2006 (and sooner wherever possible), polling places must provide voters with disabilities the equipment necessary to cast a private, unassisted vote, as is required by federal or state law or procedure. We insist that all election systems record and count every citizen’s vote in way that is permanent, accurate and verifiable, so that all citizens can be confident that the election outcome reflects the will of the voters. We believe that these two goals are not inconsistent; verifiable voting can also be accessible voting using currently existing technology (as described in the appendix).

Paperless electronic voting compromises all voters’ rights because: 1) voters are unable to verify that these voting systems have recorded o stored their votes as intended, 2) those votes are stored in an impermanent electronic form that can be altered or erased, and 3) such systems deny elections officials the ability to preserve voter-verified permanent records of the vote for subsequent recounts or audits of the election, thus making meaningful recounts impossible.

All voters disabled or not must be given the opportunity to verify that the permanent record of each ballot is a correct reflection of their intent. They must further be assured that such permanent records will be securely preserved and used to conduct any subsequent recount or audit of the election.

If, for any reason, a voter is unable to read the permanent record of his or her vote so as to verify its contents, the voting system must include an assistive device that enables the voter to do so. Provision must be made for voters who require non-visual access to be able to verify that record in an independent fashion. We also insist that if any voter requests (from the elections officials on duty at the polling place) assistance with any portion of the voting process, including verification of his or her vote, that such assistance will be available. However, no election official nor voting system should force any voter disabled or not to read or verify the permanent record of their ballot if they choose not to do so.

The use of voting machines that lack a voter-verified permanent record puts our democracy at risk. Since all citizens should be able to vote in secret and to have their votes permanently recorded and counted as intended, we approve only those voting systems that permit voters to verify that the permanent record accurately reflects their intent and which preserve that record as the official one to be used in subsequent recounts or audits of the election.

We also insist that all components of voting systems (including those involved in producing and/or verifying the voter-verified permanent record) should be adequately tested by the appropriate federal and state agencies before those systems are used to conduct elections. We also maintain that all such components, including those that provide disability access, must be included in all of the testing procedures employed by states and localities, including logic and accuracy tests as well as during parallel monitoring tests.

Until such time as equipment is available that makes the permanent, voter-verifiable record accessible to people with disabilities, we accept the use of existing paperless electronic voting machines in the polling place exclusively for voters who say they are unable to use paper ballots. In jurisdictions where a paper-based voting system is also available, those disabled voters should also be given the option of casting a paper ballot with assistance.

APPENDIX

The following examples describe various ways in which the principles elaborated in the preceding statement can be implemented using either existing technologies or those that will be deployed within the year. Any specific products cited are listed simply to show that such products exist; such listings do not constitute an endorsement of that vendor or product.

To provide a voter-verified permanent record of each voter’s choices, printers can be attached to electronic (e.g., touch screen) voting machines. Some vendors of federally-certified voting machines already provide such printers as an integral part of their machines, while at least one vendor has already announced plans to make available printers that can be retrofit to its existing, paperless electronic voting machines.

For examples of the federally-certified electronic voting machines that contain integral voter-verifiable permanent record printers, please see:

http://www.accupoll.com/

http://www.aitechnology.com/votetrakker2

For an example of a federally-certified vendor of existing, paperless electronic voting machines who will soon make available a printer retrofit for their electronic voting machines, please see:

http://www.sequoiavote.com/article.php?id=54

Nothing prevents a disabled voter from using a voting machine that has a printer attached. Since all voters must have the ability to verify the accuracy of the permanent record of their vote1, these printers must be equipped with a device that can generate a private, audio version of that record for voters who cannot read it. At least one vendor already provides this capability and others will do so soon.

The audio read-back device could work by scanning the ballot text or a bar code, or it could work in some other way. If there are multiple representations of the content of the ballot (e.g., text and a bar code), then election officials must ensure that those multiple representations tally votes consistently.

Another solution is to employ ballot marking devices which provide a touch screen or audio interface to a standard optical scan ballot. The ballot marking device works like a computerized pen or pencil and enables a disabled voter to cast an optical scan ballot in private and without assistance. Once the optical scan ballot has been filled out using the marking device, it can be scanned electronically using an optical ballot scanner and its contents can be read back to the voter via an audio interface on that scanner. This enables a blind voter to verify his or her ballot in secret and without assistance.

One example of a ballot marking device is described at:

http://www.essvote.com/index.php?section=press_item&press_id=84

http://www.vogueelection.com/products_automark.html

A somewhat similar device produces a text and bar-code ballot which can be verified and read by a bar-code scanner; that device is described at:

http://www.populex.com/dfb.htm

Both of these devices are expected to be federally-certified in 2004.

Another example of a system which produces an accessible text and barcode ballot is the one provided by the Open Voting Consortium:

http://openvotingconsortium.org

A prototype of that system was demonstrated in April 2004, but that system has not yet begun certification testing.

A third option that is readily available involves the use of tactile ballots, which are currently used in Rhode Island, Canada, Great Britain, and several other jurisdictions. These offer what may be the least expensive model for accessible paper ballots. Tactile ballots use a template into which the ballot is placed during voting. The ballots themselves have one corner precut (at the the same time the ballots are printed) so that the ballot can only be placed into the template in the correct orientation. Cutouts in the template are aligned with the check boxes or bubbles on the ballot. The template alone meets the needs of most voters with motor disabilities.

Tactile markings on the template, along with a narrative description of the ballot on an audio cassette tape, allow blind voters to vote without assistance. When combined with audio feedback from a precinct-count optical scanner, this allows blind voters the full benefit of a voter-verified paper ballot at very low cost. For examples of tactile ballots, please see:

http://www.electionaccess.org/Bp/Ballot_Templates.htm

1 The Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice has ruled that a direct recording electronic voting system that produces a contemporaneous paper record, which is not accessible to sight-impaired voters but which allows sighted voters to confirm that their ballots accurately reflect their choices before the system officially records their votes, would be consistent with the Help America Vote Act and with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, so long as the voting system provides a similar opportunity for sight-impaired voters to verify their ballots before those ballots are finally cast. http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/drevotingsystems.htm (mirror)
However, our position is that such paper records must be made accessible to all voters who choose to verify the accuracy of the permanent record of their vote.