DR. GOLDEN: Good afternoon. I am Diane Golden from Missouri Assistive
Technology. We are a unit of state government within Missouri. We are
also part of a national network of state assistive technology programs.

Each state and territory has something like us. It may not look or smell
exactly like us, but there is something out there. There\'s something in
every state that is an assistive technology program, office, or
something similar. It comes out of a federal grant program, and many of
us have additional funds and additional programs.

We\'re part of the state government and as such have been very actively
involved not only with HAVA and the HAVA state plan in Missouri but all
kinds of initatives that have to do with information technology and
telecommunications accessibility.

I have worked for the State of Missouri for a long, long time, a third
of the century I am afraid I am approaching. My background has always
been in disability work. However, I started out in audiology working
with people with hearing loss, et cetera, and gravitated to a full boat
of people with disabilities. Then I got derailed, and ended up on the
legal side of things. I am currently serving as a due process hearing
officer for special education, a mediator, et cetera.

The reason I am giving you that background is because a good portion of
our responsibility as the state assistive technology office is to make
sure Missouri doesn\'t find themselves on the wrong side of litigation.
My office\'s role is providing technical advice when it comes to
technology but also legal advice in terms of "if we go down this road
we\'re laying ourselves open for potential disability litigation."

With that as background, I believe the reason I was asked to come today
and testify is because I have been writing an article on voting
accessibility and the technical and legal issues facing states or at
least the ones we think are critical. Hopefully my remarks are based on
not just Missouri\'s experience.

I do talk frequently with my counterparts in other states. Most have
been active in HAVA state plans and obviously are interested in the
accessibility of the voting machine itself, a little less focused on
architectural accessibility of polling places, but very much interested
in voting equipment accessibility itself.

I have really three simple points.

First, we need verifiable access standards. I hate to disagree somewhat
with some of the folks testifying earlier, but I will borrow a phrase
from Dr. Vanderheiden in working on the section 508 standards. We need a
set of standards that provides access to a reasonably wide variety of
people, and abilities, and limitations. We are not going to be able to
provide access to every possible combination of limitations. That is not
going to be feasible or possible. We need technical standards that are
verifiable, can be measured, and conformance certified, so that at a
state level we know that a machine meets the \"legal requirement\" to be
the accessible machine.

Just as example if you think of architectural accessibility standards,
you don\'t say the doorway to the entrance has to be accessible. You say
it\'s going to be ramped, this wide, it\'s got a slope of this amount
and so on. There are technical requirements for doorway access that are
measurable and verifiable. That is what we have to have for voting
equipment.

We\'re not going to be able to get by with the kinds of standards that
are used in for example section 255 of the Telecommunications Act, or
even in Section 508. The standards developed for those laws are based on
a different philosophy. Section 255 standards are for designers to
design to. The section 508 standards are for people who purchase
equipment to find the product which best meets those standards. Neither
of them are "buy, don\'t buy" standards or ones that determine legal
accessible or not. So, obviously you can use those standards as helpful
background, but this is a different ballgame when you\'re talking voting
equipment.

The only standards that we currently have are the FEC 2002 VSS in terms
of accessibility standards, and they only apply to DRE's. In Missouri,
we brought in all the DRE products and I looked at the equipment as
compared to the FEC 202 standards. I had the standards in table and was
planning to check off compliance with each for a product. And after
about the third one, I said this is not working. There were a number of
standards that were simply not addressed in those products. Clearly
there had been some sort of communication issue regarding the existing
standards and compliance to those standards in the design and
manufacture of products. It seemed there was misunderstanding about what
the standards meant, how they would be interpreted, and how you verify
conformance.

I about fell over when one of the vendors pointed out to me that the
current FEC standards have a decibal level without a corresponding scale
with it. It requires a certain decibal level and never says SPL or any
other scale reference. Once I realized that, I knew the current
standards weren\'t exactly what we needed in the way of measurable,
verifiable standards.

Another problem with the current standards is that they only apply to
DREs and electronic votes. They don't address at all accessibility of a
paper ballot \-- which is point two.

Whatever you do with the voter verified paper ballot issue, decide to
require it or not -- that is a security question. I am trying to steer
as far away from that controversy as possible. However, if you are going
to require a voter verified paper ballot, it has to be accessible.

I happen to not agree with the Department of Justice\'s interpretation
this issue. Their opinion is that it is not discriminatory for a person
with a disability to be limited to verifying only the electronic vote
when non-disabled people get to verify a separate print ballot and that
may be different from the electronic vote and the print ballot may be
the real vote in a recount. I just don\'t see any way you can sell the
fact if I can\'t verify that print vote, and that\'s the real vote, and
the reason I have to have the print vote is because it may be different
from the electronic vote, I just don\'t see any way that\'s going to
pass muster as providing equal access.

So, we\'ll need standards for a voter verified paper ballot if one is
included in machine requirements. You will have to answer questions like
is synthesized speech only okay for the accessibility of that paper. As
was pointed out previously, synthesized speech is not terribly
understandable to a lot of people with disabilities. So, you have
intelligibility questions.

I have yet to see any one address the issue of making that paper ballot
accessible to people who aren\'t using audio output, specifically those
who need large print. If you require a large display in the electronic
vote, I don\'t see how you cannot require a large display or print in a
print vote. You are going to have to address that question.

To my knowledge, those states proceeding with the voter verified paper
ballot have skirted the issue of accessibility. California is the best
example. They put in place a requirement for a voter verified paper
ballot and said the paper ballot has to conform to state and federal
accessibility standards. Of course, there are none. That is a classic
state bureaucratic way of dealing with things. Just say it has to
conform with standards that don\'t exist.

The third point: After you guys come up with these measurable,
verifiable standards both for machine and paper, if both are required,
we need equipment that conforms with those standards and need those
products really, really soon. At the state level, we are looking at the
January 1, 2006, deadline for one accessible machine per polling place.
I don\'t know if we have a prayer of meeting that time line which poses
another set of questions.

At a state level what should we do; go ahead and purchase some of the
products that are already on the market that do provide some level of
accessibility in particular for specific groups of people with
disabilities?

Is existing somewhat accessible equipment going to be grandfathered in
as "accessible" and someone is going to come out and say that is okay;
you don\'t have to replace that until 2010 or if there is new money?

Should we wait until something\'s actually certified as meeting the 2002
standard? Or should we wait for your new standards and something that is
certified as meeting those standards? Just what is the best strategy for
a state?

Then a question was brought up earlier about the mix and match problem.
In a state like Missouri where we have zero DREs currently deployed,
we\'re not likely going to replace all equipment by 2006. We\'re
probably talking about putting a separate "accessible" machine in each
polling place first, which raises questions about the secrecy of those
separate ballots. My counterpart in a very rural state said to me that a
separate accessible machine at a polling place will end up being
"Suzie\'s" machine. Clearly raises concerns.

And last, the question for us is how long do we wait? If we decide to
defer, how long before we have done more harm than good by waiting. When
is it better to take some action rather than doing nothing?

I have a copy of the article I will be glad to leave.

CHAIRPERSON QUESENBERY: Thank you very much. Do you have a question,
Alice?

MS. MILLER: No. I sympathize with you including the Commission in
developing the standards.

MR. BURKHARDT: I don\'t have any.

CHAIRPERSON QUESENBERY: I have an incredibly unfair question. I will ask
it anyway. Do you think it is possible to create an accessible voting
system that includes some sort of paper as part of the voting process?

DR. GOLDEN: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON QUESENBERY: I won't make you elaborate unless you want to.

DR. GOLDEN: No. I don\'t think my concern is the paper although I have
said this particularly to our Secretary of State.

Paper is really inaccessible in and of itself. That is why you do
electronic because it\'s manipulable. But, no it is not the paper itself
that\'s an issue.

It\'s the problem of converting paper back into electronic or accessible
form that really unnerves me, when it came out electronic to begin with.
It boggles my mind.

CHAIRPERSON QUESENBERY: It\'s the bolted-on aspect of it rather than the
paper itself?

DR. GOLDEN: Yes. Anybody who works with assistive technology can tell
you the last resort is the bolt-on approach. You are much better off
building in the access up front. Figuring out how to do that rather than
adding-on is a major problem with current systems.

CHAIRPERSON QUESENBERY: Do you have any questions?

MR. ELEKES: Not a question but comment. Your state obviously has a
national affiliate for the national library series from the National
Library of Congress for print handicap individuals?

DR. GOLDEN: Yes. Part of our Secretary State Office.

MR. ELEKES: Okay. For your information, they have a standard for large
print and for Braille production. I believe large print they deem
anything over 18 point type.

That\'s the minimum standard, and Braille is the standard so many cells
per line, so many lines per column inch. There is a standard out there
promulgated by the national library service for Blind and physically
handicapped from the Library of Congress.

But it\'s a recommended standard and not iron clad. Generally when
people are dealing with large print, I don\'t know the types of print
you have in front of you, but I am sure it\'s at least 18 point minimum.

DR. GOLDEN: Yes. The FEC 2002 VSS actually uses 6.3 millimeters, I
believe, off the top of my head. They went with millimeter metric
because of electronic display.

CHAIRPERSON QUESENBERY: Yes. They went beyond that actually. They are
looking at size at a distance.

MS. GOLDEN: There is a lot of discussion going on about the metrics. So
if you were going to require a large print paper ballot and display,
what would the quantifiers be?

CHAIRPERSON QUESENBERY: How do you make it comparable.

MR. ELEKES: Thank you.