Garrison Keillor, host of “Prairie Home Companion” on National Public Radio, joked recently about elderly voters in Florida’s Palm Beach County. They can manage fifteen different boards in a beano game, he gibed, but they could not cope with their election ballot.
Like most of Keillor’s quips, this one drew hearty laughter from the audience, but (leaving aside its somewhat ageist tinge) it also prompts serious questions about voting procedures in a society that is aging so dramatically. At a time when so many more of us have passed age 65, does that mean public authority should make changes in the places where we vote and in the ways by which we indicate our electoral choices?
Surely the answer is yes, but not because we older Americans, having become so numerous, need user-friendly voting methods. Rather, citizens of every age, even those without notable disabilities, when they go to vote need to find places they can enter easily and procedures that are user-friendly. Also, whenever voting problems arise., we need to have help readily available. Younger people may require such assistance as well as their seniors.
As to polling places, a federal law enacted a dozen years ago, the “Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act,” requires them to be accessible to people with disabilities. So such access is, in the words of a lawyer friend who is expert in election issues, “not merely a good idea, but a federal requirement.”
The Secretary of State’s office in Massachusetts in cooperation with the disability commission, has recently surveyed all of the polling places in the Commonwealth to check on their accessibility. Though all the voting sites were found in conformity with regulations on designated election days, some of them are still not accessible at other times, a situation state authorities regard as less than desirable.
Another problem deserves attention: voters are often not aware of help that is available. Talking to Teresa Neighbor, the executive director of the Election Commission in Cambridge, I discovered, for example, that each voting site in our city has an area marked “visual aids.” Voters who have vision problems can use the magnifying rulers and magnifying glasses available there. But this is a service that I, a veteran voter, had never noticed or heard of.
In Massachusetts, the mechanics of voting are much more easily handled than in Florida and in other states where punch cards are still used. As Brian McNiff, spokesman for Secretary of State William Galvin, informed me, “Massachusetts got rid of punch cards three years ago.” Some two percent of voters in this state, however, still use cards that are punched with a mechanical lever.
That move away from the old punch cards came as a result of the memorable contest for a congressional seat from the South Shore four years ago. There Philip Johnston had seemingly emerged as the winner in a very close election, only to lose to William Delahunt on the basis of a recount. In this instance the Supreme Judicial Court paved the way to the changed outcome by ruling that “discernable stylus impressions” could be counted as genuine votes.
Residents of this commonwealth also do not have to cope with “butterfly ballots.” They have never been used here. However, voters here, as in other states, are increasingly confronted by referendum questions. Often these referenda present long and complicated texts for consideration in voting booths where lighting is often what my lawyer friend characterizes as “terrible.”
Secretary Galvin strongly encourages voters to read these questions at home before they come to vote. Otherwise, one may struggle to follow them in the narrow confines of the voting booth, sometimes feeling pressured because other voters may be waiting for their turn.
Whether or not the ballot is complicated by referenda, difficulties with the mechanics of voting often arise but not just for older people. Some voters in every age bracket have disabilities. Whatever is done to improve conditions at voting sites will benefit not just them but citizens in general. The evidence from Florida and many other places indicates that the need to reform and perhaps standardize American voting procedures has become inescapable.
Last week Secretary of State Galvin announced plans to request funds from the legislature for loans to Massachusetts cities and towns wishing to upgrade their voting systems. Even though none of them reported serious problems this year, many local governments have expressed interest in improving their equipment.
One change, recently proposed as a national model, should not be adopted. Television screens, with ATM-like features, would disadvantage many elders and other people not comfortable with electronic devices. In addition, my lawyer friend points out, “they do not create an audit trail.” Among other things, this means you could not use them for recounts.
Whatever the precise methods chosen, surely this is a favorable time for establishing greater uniformity in procedures or, at least, making them as user-friendly as possible for everybody. As Teresa Neighbor says, “Florida serves as a good wake-up call.”
Richard Griffin