Disabled voters should find polling places easier to get into come Election Day 2004. But they may not find it any easier to vote once they're there.

That's because a 2002 state law mandating at least one disabled-accessible voting machine per precinct was made contingent upon money being available - and a federal mandate requiring the machines doesn't kick in until 2006.

The problem is compounded by the fact that the state has yet to complete the complex certification process that will allow Diebold Election Systems - which holds contracts for optical-scan voting equipment in 30 of the state's 67 counties - to provide audio-capable touch-screen systems for the visually impaired.

Many counties using other optical-scan and touch-screen systems have purchased audio-capable machines that are used in a central location, but all counties fall far short of meeting the new precinct mandates.

"I expect we'll meet the 2006 deadline," said Doug Towne, president of the Florida Coalition for Disability Rights. "But many counties are still going through the motions."

It's an important issue. Almost 25 percent of the state's voting-age population has some kind of disability, and fully 40 percent of them went to the polls in the 2000 election, according to the American Association of People with Disabilities.

Towne, who lives in Pinellas County, had his first chance to vote on the audio machine in the 2002 election. He said he felt a new freedom - even though he actually was exercising what should have been a basic civil right to a secret ballot.

"I guess it's hard for sighted people to understand how it feels to vote for the first time without people helping you or kibitzing about who you vote for," Towne said.

Challenged in court

Some disabled-rights groups have lost patience with the process. Lawsuits filed in Palm Beach and Duval counties pushed for audio-capable voting machines in time for the 2002 election.

Last month a federal magistrate threw out the Palm Beach County case, which was filed by blind voters who wanted access to an audio-balloting machine in every precinct in the 2002 election. The magistrate noted that Elections Supervisor Theresa LePore has since provided machines.

A federal judge in Jacksonville is expected to rule soon on a similar lawsuit in Duval County, following a 6½-day trial in September. That suit was filed by the American Association of People with Disabilities, who contend the county was required to put in the accessible machines under the Americans With Disabilities Act when it upgraded from a punch-card to an optical-scan system.

Disabled advocates say the ADA requires all new government facilities to be accessible to the disabled when implemented, regardless of the provisions of the other federal mandate, the Help America Vote Act, known as HAVA.

"You can't open a new government building one year and say 'I'll put the elevator in next year. Until then, use the stairs'," said James Dickson, vice president of governmental affairs for the national group for the disabled.

Jacksonville was one of three cities targeted by national disabled advocates. The aim is to set a legal precedent that the ADA must be complied with on voting issues, Dickson said. Lawsuits filed in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., by the National Organization on Disability have since been settled, with disabled advocates declaring victory.

An attorney in the Duval County case said the county had been prepared to offer three machines - they just hadn't been certified by the state Division of Elections in time. The Diebold machines still aren't certified and are undergoing another round of testing this week.

"The irony is we had every expectation that the disabled component would be certified, and the fact that it hasn't been has been a surprise to everybody," said Jacksonville Senior Assistant General Counsel Ernst Mueller, one of three attorneys defending the case.

Time-consuming process

Florida has some of the most rigorous certification standards for election equipment in the nation. State election officials say the cumbersome process is needed to ensure accuracy in balloting and counting votes. It's not unusual for it to take a year or more, they said.

"The Department of State reviews the vendor's application for completeness, establishes a qualification test plan and conducts a series of fundamental testing to ensure the system meets the minimum requirements of the Florida Voting System Standards and can properly support the conduct of a Florida election," said Secretary of State Glenda Hood. "We are confident the necessary procedures in place will continue our commitment to improve Florida's elections process, so all registered voters in Florida are able to cast their vote with confidence."

That's not fast enough for some disabled voters.

"Florida has a reputation of having one of the slowest certification processes there is," Dickson said. "Certainly we want slow, thorough and deliberate. But there's a difference between slow, thorough and deliberate and dawdling."

Election supervisors, have, however, made great strides trying to bring the polling locations themselves to compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act.

County workers across the state spent the summer measuring parking spaces and curb heights at polling places. They tugged on doors with fish scales to determine how hard they are to open. They measured and counted handicapped parking spaces and combed through thousands of polling places to see where they needed updating.

Each county had to submit a 32-page accessibility survey to the state by Oct. 1. The state Division of Elections still is compiling the information, said a spokeswoman there.

Compliance won't be cheap.

Churches, often used for polling places because they are convenient to communities, are exempt from the ADA so they must be upgraded to meet polling-place requirements. Schools, another popular polling place, are in shorter supply as an unintended consequence of the constitutional amendment voters passed last year requiring smaller classrooms.

Deborah Clark, Pinellas County supervisor of elections, puts the cost of ADA compliance in her 302 polling places at about $800,000.

"What if we invest the money, and that location doesn't want to be a polling place anymore," she said. "This may drive us to regional polling places."

Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho said it will cost the same $800,000 to put one audio balloting system in each of Leon's 126 polling places. Sancho chafed at White House delays in putting a committee together to implement HAVA and at uncertainty in Congress about how much money will be sent to states.

"Talk is cheap. But where is the money?" he asked.

Towne finds the money argument unacceptable.

"Nobody said that a constitutional government was cheap," Towne said. "If we want to make it cheaper, why don't we just do away with elections?"