Whitley getting handicap accessible voting machines

Thanks to a new federal law, some Whitley County voting precincts will be moved to more centralized locations, and the county will be getting some new machines that will make it easier for handicapped voters to cast their ballots without assistance from election officers.
Joe Harp, a representative of Harp Enterprises, which sold and services the county’s voting machines and tabulation equipment, noted that the new machines are being provide through congress’s Help America Vote Act.
“The Help America Vote Act was an act passed by congress in reaction to what happened in the 2000 presidential election in Florida,” Harp said. “They made a law that sets minimum standards in all voting systems in use in America. For the most part everything we are doing here in Kentucky is in compliance with the new federal law.”
Harp said the idea behind the law is so handicapped people can vote without assistance although assistance will still be provided if the voter requests it.
The county will receive money to purchase a new voting machine for each precinct that will allow blind voters to vote by a computer reading the ballot to them, and letting them vote verbally. It will also provide a means for people without the use of their hands to vote via use of their feet.
Whitley County Clerk Tom Rains said the new law will mean the centralization of some voting precincts in order to make them handicap accessible.
For instance, the Pine Mountain and South America precincts will be moved to Poplar Creek Elementary School, which already has one voting precinct. Another precinct might be moved there as well. The reason for the move to the schools is that they are already handicap accessible.
“During the next election we will be doing some centralized voting. We will still have the same number of election officers, but we have a lot of precincts that aren’t handicap accessible, and would require the fiscal court $2,000 to $3,000 per precinct to bring them into compliance,” Rains noted. “This handicap accessibility issue is hitting us, and we have no choice but to comply. If we don’t comply, the state won’t pay $255 per precinct is what it boils down to.”
Rains said he hired a man, who has to use a wheelchair, to conduct the handicap accessibility study for the county. Rains said he felt the man was far more qualified to do the study that he was.
In order for the precincts to be handicap accessible, they must have a paved parking lot and sidewalk among other features.
Harp said the act will also provide for an upgrade in current voting machines that will change how the votes are stored.
“Right now they remember all the votes in a cumulative faction. In the upcoming election starting in ’06 they will have to remember the votes in a one by one fashion,” Harp added. “There is no way I will be able to look at that machine and tell how any one individual person voted because it scrambles the vote results, and there is no way I can print them out in order that is provided for in the federal legislation. “There is no way to trace each voters vote back to them.”
Harp said the only way anyone will be able to look at the audit log in the machines is through a court order.
In addition, the changes will provide the county with a paper ballot management system that will enable the county clerk to print their own absentee ballots and sample ballots on demand.
“This will reduce some of your election costs regarding paper ballots since there won’t be any leftovers,” Harp said. “Since the county has already purchased that system in the last couple of years, they will be refunded that amount of money that went into that purchase.”
The fiscal court voted during its monthly meeting Tuesday morning, to authorize Rains to advertise for bids on the new voting systems.
Harp noted that if the county doesn’t purchase they systems before Jan. 1, 2006, then it will be responsible for paying for the new equipment on its own.