SAN FRANCISCO
Mock election to help test, choose voting technology for disabled

Ilene Lelchuk     San Francisco Chronicle    August 2, 2005
 
The Department of Elections is inviting San Francisco residents to stop by City Hall for a mock election through Aug. 12 to help the city test and choose between two voting systems that will be more accessible for people with disabilities.

Using two kinds of touch screens, volunteer testers can pretend to vote for their favorite flower, animal and San Francisco attraction, and then rate how easy it was to cast their votes.

Under federal law, the city has until January to have at least one accessible machine for each polling place. The current voting system uses paper ballots that voters complete with a pen and then feed into optical scan machines at each precinct to tally the votes.

The two companies competing for a contract to provide accessible systems, Sequoia Voting Systems and Election Systems and Software, propose touch screens with features for voters who are unable to reach the screen such as a "sip-puff" sensor that a user can blow or breathe into to make ions. Other features include foot pedals and audio aides for blind voters.

"The issue here is, people who have significant vision impairment or upper body limitations have essentially been unable to vote privately and independently," said Susan Mizner, director of the Mayor's Office on Disability. Many people have felt their only option was to vote by absentee ballot or with the help of poll workers, she said.

The Election Systems and Software model would print out a voter's choices on the usual paper ballot, while the Sequoia system would store them electronically, said San Francisco Elections Director John Arntz. The Sequoia system would keep a paper audit trail as required by state law.

The federal and state governments are providing about $8 million to pay for the approximately 630 touch screens the city would need for its polling places.

Arntz said the city would use the funds to replace its 630 optical scanners, which the city bought from Election Systems and Software in 2000. There's nothing wrong with them, but, as voting technology evolves, newer hardware might help the city pass its annual state election equipment recertification process more easily, Arntz said. He'll announce a winning machine by Sept. 30.

Other counties, facing the same deadlines, also are sniffing out new systems. San Mateo County, for example, is deciding between the Election Systems and Software model and a nontouch screen system that allows the voter to turn a dial to scroll up or down a ballot and push a button to make a ion. For voters without upper body mobility, it also uses sip-puff technology, Chief Elections Officer Warren Slocum said.

In doing months of research on the issue, including holding three accessible voting fairs for the public, Slocum said he's learned there are more than 200 kinds of disabilities that elections officers are trying to accommodate.

Alameda County acting Registrar of Voters Elaine Ginnold said her county has had an accessible touch-screen voting system since 2002. But she'll still need new equipment to meet other new mandates.