NYC’s Interim E-Voting Solution Preps for November Rollout

At Staten Island’s Center for Independent Living, disabled Islanders took a small step toward equal opportunity on October 18.

They voted.

More precisely, they came to the center on Castleton Avenue to test out the city’s new Ballot Marking Devices, or BMDs (they don’t tabulate votes, just mark ballots), which allow many disabled New Yorkers their first opportunity to vote autonomously.

Not everyone can pull a lever or read a ballot, which is why some disabled voters in the past needed assistance to vote. But with these machines, voters can touch a screen, use a keyboard with special oversized keys, press rocker paddles with their feet, or sip and puff their way through the voting process with a plastic straw.

Voters don’t even need to see the screen, as the entire ballot can be read by a computer voice over headphones, in English, Spanish, Chinese, or Korean.

While the machines may be just what disabled voters are waiting for, many have been waiting for decades.

“Since [former Mayor Ed] Koch’s time I’ve seen different machines come in and out,” said Dorothy Doran, the Independent Living Center’s Executive Director, “and then they never materialized when you went to the poling places.”

Just how these particular machines did materialize is a story all its own.

In 2002, the United States Congress passed the Help America Vote Act, which required all states to provide voting equipment that can be used by people with disabilities.

But according to Pej Azarm, a consultant working with the State Board of Elections, New York State missed the deadline to purchase the machines in January of 2006, and so didn’t get the federal money to buy all the machines.

“Then, the Federal Government, and the Department of Justice specifically, decided to sue the State of New York…,” Azarm explained to the group, “to make sure they were going to be complaint this year. The City then stepped in and worked with the Appeals Courts and the Department of Justice to come up with an interim solution for 2006.”

The interim solution, in the form of the Ballot Marking Devices, were first used in last month’s primaries by 580 voters, according to Azarm.

“Everything went over very well…” said Azarm. “One constructive criticisms we got from CINDY (the Center for Independence of the Disabled, NY) was that when people actually came to vote, poll workers were so excited to help them they would sometimes kind of hover around them and make sure and ask them ‘are you OK, do you need assistance?’ and so on.”

Azarm says the poll workers have been asked to give voters more space in November, so they can better enjoy their newly acquired voter privacy.

But everything hasn’t been solved for the City’s disabled voters. As Azarm mentioned, this is an interim solution. As such, these machines won’t be available in every polling station, but only at the “super-polling” sites located at the Board of Elections office of each borough.

According to Azarm any voter, disabled or not, can come to their borough Election office and vote on the machines.

But for disabled New Yorkers who have to travel miles from their normal neighborhood polling places to vote, travel becomes a serious issue.

“[The Board of Elections] is providing eight accessible handicap spots specifically intended for people who are going to be voting, in front of each building.” Azarm explained. The City has also been working with Access-A-Ride, a bussing service that provides transportation for people with disabilities.

“Although they haven’t been able to commit to having a shuttle service…,” Azarm said. “they are going to do as much as they can.”

Time and congestion could also be a factor. According to documentation released by the City Election Board, voting with these machines can take more than three minutes using the display screen and touch response, and up to 45 minutes, depending on the length of the ballot, for voters using audio. There are no legal time limits for voters using these machines.

According to John Ravitz, Executive Director of the New York City Board of Elections, Staten Island will have three machines at their Elections office on November 7. The Bronx will have four; Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn will each have five.

Still, as interim solutions go, after a non-eventful primary roll-out, these machines seem poised for success. Though no one can be sure what will happen on election day.

As Lawrence Norden, Chair of the Brennan Center Task Force on Voting System Security, said at a recent public discussion of New York voting machine issues, “Right now there is no perfect voting system…But having a system voters can easily use is extremely important.”

And the BMDs have at least met with anecdotal success.

At the Staten Island Center for Independent Living, a disabled voter had nothing but good things to say after spending a few minutes with the machine.

When the device printed out her , she had practiced voting completely on her own, her eyes opened wide and she smiled.

“I love it! I Love it! I love it!” she said.

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