http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/21/nyregion/21vote.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
The New York Times
June 21, 2006
A
Chance to Mark the Ballot by Puffing Through a Straw
By SEWELL CHAN
For the first time, New York City residents will be able to
vote by "puffing" and "sipping" air through a straw,
pumping a foot pedal, touching a computer screen or pressing flat plastic
shapes — two triangles, a circle and a square — affixed to the four corners of
a specially configured keyboard.
These new methods, which represent the biggest innovation in
the city's voting technologies since the Shoup mechanical-lever machine was
introduced in 1962, are a temporary measure intended to help disabled people
vote.
The new voting methods are the product of a lawsuit from the
federal government. They will be used in the Sept. 12 primary and the Nov. 7
general election as an interim step to comply with a new federal requirement
that voting machines be accessible to the disabled.
The new voting methods can be used on 22 ballot-marking
devices that will be available at one site in each of the five boroughs. It is
an imperfect compromise: by placing the machines at centrally located offices,
the city is essentially requiring some of the least mobile voters to travel the
longest distances to vote. And because it can take up to 40 minutes to cast a
vote using the new machines, voters may find themselves waiting in long lines.
The devices are not actual voting machines; they cannot
record votes, but merely generate a printed ballot on a sheet of white paper.
The voter, with help from a poll worker if necessary, would then place the
ballot in an envelope. The ballot would then be counted by hand, along with
other paper ballots, including absentee ballots, on Election Day or shortly
after.
John Ravitz, the executive director of the city's Board of
Elections, gave a presentation yesterday on voting reform to members of a
mayoral task force on modernizing elections and later oversaw a demonstration
of the new devices to members of the board and the public, including several
disabled residents.
In March, the Justice Department sued New York State for
failing to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002, which called
on the states to overhaul their voting systems. In May, after both sides
acknowledged that the state could not overhaul its entire system in time for
this year's elections, they agreed on a compliance plan that required each
county to provide a limited number of voting machines that are fully accessible
to the disabled for this year's elections.
The city bought 27 ballot-marking devices from Avante
International Technology of Princeton Junction, N.J. The company is also
providing the devices to 32 of the 57 counties in New York State outside New
York City.
By next year, the state must have fully accessible voting
machines in every polling place statewide — including the 1,369 in New York
City. The state Board of Elections, which must approve new voting systems, has
not yet done so, and so the city must wait before selecting its new voting
technology.
The new ballot-marking devices will be available in each of
the board's five borough offices: 5 each in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens; 4
in the Bronx; and 3 in Staten Island. (Three devices will be used in
demonstrations, and two internally.) Before the September primary, the board
will mail information about the devices to the city's 4.3 million registered
voters.
Some advocates for the disabled said they were not fully
satisfied. "I'm sorry we're having to go ahead with this interim
plan," said Alexander Wood, executive director of the Disabilities Network
of New York City, which represents people with motor and sensory disabilities. "I
would have liked to see us hold out for a solution that accommodates all
disenfranchised voters. This is a separate system, not an equal system."
Mr. Wood, a paraplegic who uses a wheelchair, noted that it
could take up to 40 minutes for a disabled voter to cast a ballot using the new
device. Many disabled voters will have to listen to a long recorded
announcement with instructions — and the contents of the ballot — before they
can vote.
Terrence C. O'Connor, a Queens Democrat who holds the
rotating presidency of the 10-member city Board of Elections, conceded that the
new device could be cumbersome. "It's the best it could be under the
circumstances," he said.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company