Voting machines for disabled assailed

[FogerRox]

Voting machines for disabled assailed

Touch-screens lead to fraud, error, critics say

Pat Flannery
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 21, 2006 12:00 AM

Bob Kresmer never casts a secret ballot.

Every time the Tucson man walks into a voting booth, someone is with him. It used to be a poll worker. Now it's usually his wife, though he once took his young daughter.

Kresmer, who is blind, needs someone to read and mark his ballot for him. So, it is with great anticipation that he and many others have been looking toward the Sept. 12 primary. That's the deadline by which federal law requires every precinct in the nation to have at least one machine allowing citizens with disabilities, including the blind, to vote without assistance. advertisement




But meeting that requirement could become complicated in Arizona. The state soon could join a growing list of states fighting over touch-screen voting machines.

Voter Action, a non-profit advocacy group, recently sued New Mexico and prodded it into spending $25 million on an all-paper ballot system. In Maryland, the governor told his state elections board this month that he no longer has faith in touch-screen machines.

>snip<

But Kresmer said disabled voters would be disappointed. A lawsuit means waiting again to vote alone.

"That's not what we would like to see here," he said.



Reach the reporter at pat [e-mail] or [phone].

FUll story:

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0321votemachines0321.html

[Wilms]

1. .

[eridani]

2. Vote-PAD!!

Vote-PAD!!Vote-PAD!!Vote-PAD!!Vote-PAD!!Vote-PAD!!Vote-PAD!!