CCD Letter on Voluntary Voting System Guidelines Access Standards

This document is archived as it is no longer timely and may be only of historical value.

For information on current issues see Voting Accessibility Issues in the Public Policy and Policy Research section.

As a member of the Civil Rights Task Force of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities, AFB signed on to this letter.

September 27, 2005

Juliet Thompson
General Counsel
Election Assistance Commission
1225 New York Ave., Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20005

Dear Ms. Thompson:

The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD) is a coalition of 100 national disability organizations working together to advocate for national public policy that ensures the self-determination, independence, empowerment, integration and inclusion of children and adults with disabilities in all aspects of society. The Rights Task Force of CCD focuses on civil rights and protections for the 56 million people with disabilities and for the enforcement of civil rights provisions by federal agencies.

The Rights Task Force suggests the following recommendations to be included in the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) Access Standards, specifically Section 2.2.7, the "Human Factors" section which deals with accessibility, accuracy, and secrecy in the voting process:

• An element that needs to be included as the first step in "access to the voting process" is accessible voter registration.
  
  
  • There are 20.9 million voting aged citizens with disabilities who are not registered to vote, approximately 56% of the total disability population. This figure comes from the examination of 740,000 public voting records in ten states, prior to the November 2004 election. Despite the passage of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) in 1993, there remains a large voter registration gap between people with disabilities and the general population - a barrier here prohibits further participation in the electoral process.
    
    As you may be aware, many people with disabilities who are eligible to vote do not drive and consequently do not have a need to visit the state division of motor vehicles (DMV) as highlighted by the NVRA. Intending to eliminate the voter registration gap, the NVRA also requires that states shall designate disability and social service agencies to offer voter registration, application collection, and to send the voter registrations to the state registrar's office. Unfortunately, disability and social service agency participation in NVRA mandates has been spotty at best. Under Motor Voter, states are given the leeway to identify disability and social service agencies which shall provide voter registration, particularly if they receive federal funding. Any states which have not identified agency participation so must do so immediately, and the Rights Task Force recommends that all states shall undertake regular compliance reviews to ensure that people with disabilities have full access to the registration process.
    
    As Diane Golden, Ph.D., of the Missouri Assistive Technology Council states, in any access standards development process, a central goal is to ensure that the level of accessibility required is reasonably achievable while at the same time providing an adequate level of accessibility for individuals with a wide variety of disabilities. It is acknowledged that full accessibility cannot be delivered to all individuals with all types and combinations of disabilities. At the same time, it is also commonly understood that accessibility standards should not provide an extensive level of accessibility to one disability group while disregarding the access needs of others. And most importantly, access standards should always maintain or move the level of accessibility forward. A new set of access standards should never reduce the level of accessibility that was delivered by a previous set of standards.
• There are several sections of the proposed VVSG which provide a lesser level of access to voters with partial vision and manual dexterity disabilities than the previous Federal Election Commission (FEC) 2002 Voting System Standards (VSS). The CCD Rights Task Force proposes that there be equal access to paper ballots for voters with all types of vision disabilities (blindness and low vision) when paper ballots are used as an official vote record; that equal access and secrecy is ensured for voters with motor and hand disabilities when the voting process includes submitting a paper ballot that is an official vote record; and that privacy is maintained for voters who use large print output on paper ballots used as an official vote record.
  
  
  • Issue 1: Ensure Equal Access to paper ballots.
    
    Current Standard 2.2.7.1.2.1.3 - All voting stations using paper ballots should make provisions for voters with poor reading vision. (Page 2-15, line 1)
    
    Current Standard 6.8.2.2 -- The voting station shall be capable of showing the showing the information in at least two font ranges (a) 3-4 mm and (b) 6.3-9 mm, information on the paper in a font size of at least 3.0 mm, and should be capable of under control of the voter or poll worker. (Page 38, line 14)
    
    Current Standard 2.2.7.1.2.2.6 - If the normal procedure includes VVPAT, the Acc-VS should provide features that enable voters who are blind to perform this verification. If a state requires the paper record produced by the VVPAT to be the official ballot, then the Acc-VS shall provide features that enable visually impaired voters to review the paper record. (Page 2-22, line 3)
    
    Current Standard 6.8.3.5 -- If the normal procedure includes VVPAT, the Acc-VS should provide features that enable voters who are blind to perform this verification. (Page 41, line 4)
  • The first two standards taken together deny equal access to systems using paper ballots, including VVPAT, for visually impaired voters who require large print text output. If a paper ballot is or can be the vote of record, accessibility standards must ensure alternative large print output of that paper ballot is available. It is discriminatory based on disability type to require audio output (thus providing access for individuals who are blind) yet not require large print text output for individuals with other vision disabilities.
    
    Standard 2.2.7.1.2.2.6 may require appropriate accessibility (both large print and audio output), however the wording is unclear. The second sentence limits its application to situations in which a state requires a VVPAT to be an official ballot. Election officials at more than just the state level could require or allow the paper ballot to be the official vote record. The standard must make it clear that if the paper ballot is or can be the official vote of record it MUST be accessible to voters who are blind and those with low vision. It is unclear why this second sentence was added to a standard that is limited to blind voters when the language applies it to "visually impaired voters" which includes all types of vision disabilities.
    
    Important Note: Making "optical aids" available at a polling place is NOT an appropriate accessibility solution and it cannot be used in place of electronic output of large print, high contrast text. Non-electronic magnifiers must be matched to an individual's vision limitations, their visual tracking skills, and their personal refractive lens use. A polling place cannot possibly have available the range of optical aids that would be necessary to ensure appropriate accessibility and it is inappropriate to suggest a polling place use that approach to delivering accessibility.
• Recommendations:
• Delete current 2.2.7.1.2.1.3 and replace with:

• "If the normal procedure includes a paper ballot, which is or can be an official vote record, visually impaired voters shall be able to vote and cast the paper ballot through an output that conforms to 2.2.7.1.2. standards."

• Revise 6.8.2.2 to read:

• "The voting station shall be capable of showing the information on the paper in at least two font ranges (a) 3-4 mm and (b) 6.3-9 mm."

• Move/change 2.2.7.1.2.2.6 to apply to all visually impaired voters and revise to read:

• "If the normal procedure includes a paper ballot which is or can be the official vote record, the Acc-VS shall provide features that enable visually impaired voters to review the paper ballot in accordance with 2.2.7.1.2 standards."

• Revise 6.8.3.5 to be consistent with above.
  
  
• Issue 2: Ensure equal access to the paper voting process.
  
  
• Current Standard 2.2.7.1.3.5 -If the normal procedure is for voters to submit their own ballots, then the voting process should provide features that enable voters who lack fine motor control or the use of their hands to perform this submission. (Page 2-24, line 2)
  
  This is exactly the same standard as 2.2.7.1.2.2.5 for blind voters, except it is a "shall" for blind voters and is only a "should" for voters with motor limitations. It is inappropriate for voters with motor disabilities to be denied access that is required for blind voters.
  
  Recommendation: Change "should" to "shall".
  
  Issue 3: Ensure privacy of paper ballots.
  
  Current Standard 2.2.7.4.2.1 -- No information shall be kept within a non-paper-based Cast Vote Record that identifies any accessibility feature(s) used by a voter. (Page 2-44, line 10)
  
  Current Standard 6.8.5.3 -- The privacy and anonymity of voters whose paper records contain any of the alternative languages chosen for making ballot sections shall be maintained. (Page 44, line 15)
  
  These requirements together seem to require that electronic vote records and VVPAT ballots must preserve privacy and anonymity of voters - BUT other paper based ballot systems do not necessarily have such a responsibility. In fact, the discussion for 2.2.7.4.2.1.notes "Large-print paper ballots unavoidably preserve such information." This is inconsistent with 6.8.5.3 and denies individuals with low vision a secret ballot as is required by HAVA.
  
  Recommendation: Revise the Human Factors Section to be consistent with VVPAT Section (Standard 6.8.5.3) by deleting 2.2.7.4.2.1 and 2.2.7.4.2.2 and leaving 2.2.7.4.2 as is written.
  
  

  Other Issues:

  In addition to these three major accessibility issues, a number of standards in the VVSG continue to utilize "should" instead of "shall", including:

  • Shape and color identification of buttons and controls (2.2.7.1.2.1.3)
    Sanitized headphones (2.2.7.1.2.2.3.4)
    Capacity to provide digitized (human) speech versus synthesized speech (2.2.7.1.2.2.3.8)
    Voter ability to adjust speed of speech (2.2.7.1.2.2.3.9)
    Capacity to provide dual switch input (2.2.7.1.3.4)
• Some of the discussion sections indicate that it is anticipated that future versions of the VVSG will require these accessibility features. In reality, the VVSG (Version 1) access standards that apply to purchases designed to meet the January 1, 2006 deadline for one accessible machine per polling place will dictate what is available for the next 10-20 years.
  
  
• Considering that HAVA funds are provided for a one-time purchase, the majority of states will not be able to easily move from a "should" system to a "shall" system and those additional requirements will have little impact on what is available to consumers for years to come. Unlike other types of information technology, voting systems do not have a typical replacement cycle of 3 to 4 years. As a result, planning on incremental increases in accessibility through subsequent VVSG versions will provide limited end outcomes for consumers.
  
  
• In addition, since HAVA requires one "accessible" voting machine per polling place, the legal benchmark for that one accessible machine will be the access standards/guidelines currently available. A guideline or standard with a "should" is not part of what is required to meet the legal requirement of "accessible" and will have little impact on the market and buying decisions.
  
  
• Recommendation: Many of these features are currently available in products on the market (e.g. many offer switch input, many offer both synthesized and digitized speech options.) We would recommend that a mandatory upgrade date be specified for which an Acc-VS must provide these current "should" features. If an upgrade date is not required, all due consideration must be given to changing "should's" to "shall's" to the maximum extent possible.

The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) is more than election reform; it's a sweeping piece of civil rights legislation that requires that all eligible voters shall have access to the voting process without discrimination. It means that voter registration, absentee balloting, polling place access, adequate parking and signage, voting instructions, voting machine instructions, candidate selection, receiving trained pollworker assistance, ballot review, official paper records review, and final submission of the ballots all are accessible components of the voting process.

Thank you for your consideration.