Disability Lawyers Dis DREs
The Iowa legislature is about to take up a bill that will force counties to phase out touchscreen voting machines(DREs). The bill got some support this month from two disabilities groups.
The Massachusetts Disability Law Center applauded their state’s decision not to buy touchscreens and called for
common ground between the disability rights community and the growing number of citizens who are concerned that many of the proposed new technologies are subject to tampering and error, . .
And Bradblog reports an ad hoc group has told Congress to immediately ban DREs because DREs
have quickly proven to be neither fully accessible to all voters nor secure and accurate methods of recording, tallying, and reporting votes. While the goal of private voting has been achieved by some voters, this has often been without meaningful assurance that our votes have been counted as cast.
The Iowa bill does not ban DREs. It says counties cannot buy new ones as they replace what they bought with HAVA money just two years ago. One state senator is believed to be seeking money in the new budget for a quicker removal of these dreadful devices. Wish him luck.