EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Diane Golden
Organization : | Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs
Post Date : | 9/9/2005
General Comments
Comment : | Comments to the Election Assistance Commission On the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) Submitted via votingsystemguidelines@eac.gov July 13, 2005 Introduction The Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs represents 51 state and territory Assistive Technology Act programs throughout the country. Collectively, we provide and support access to assistive technology for individuals with all types of disabilities of all ages. Many of us are actively engaged in assisting state and local election officials implement the accessibility provisions of HAVA, specifically the requirement for one accessible voting machine per polling place. As such we are keenly interested in assuring that the accessibility standards included in the VVSG deliver an appropriate and equitable level of access to individuals with all types of disabilities. We also want to ensure that the level of accessibility provided by the VVSG access standards is not less than that provided by the FEC 2002 access standards. To that end we are extremely concerned about three major barriers to accessibility posed by the current draft of the VVSG which seem to compromise delivery of independent and secret voting by individuals with disabilities.