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Providing accessibilities of “voter verified paper ballot” to visually impaired voters 

(Rev B May 17, 2007) 

Most people object to the reading back of the VVPB using the original voting system as placing 

too much trust on the manufacturers of the voting systems. Some them oppose it even when 

such portion of the source codes are made public as required by some State election codes. 

The objection may be technically correct that such reading back of the VVPB of DRE requires 

the system to back track to the database or at least the database table of the candidates being 

selected for reading back. The true and technically feasible way to provide the independent and 

private verification of paper ballots for the visually impaired voters is having a third party 

equivalent of machine-person. Such facility must be independent of the voting system 

manufacturer. This will require a system (hardware-firmware-software) that is commercial-offthe-shelf (COTS) that has open standards. Even a third party developed system that is opensource may not be independent enough if they are not truly COTS. After all, it is dependent on 

yet another manufacturer. 

Most people forgot that all of the current ballot-marking devices (BMD) use templates to print or 

mark on pre-printed ballots, or print and mark on the same ballot. When they are fed back for 

reading the ballot, they do not use third party OCR or a barcode reader as independent 

mechanism. Instead they still go back and use the template to compare on the marked area and 

use the table to read back to the voters. They are one and the same whether reading from the 

data stream for printing or reading back by using the template after scanning. 

The only commercial-of-the-shelf (COTS) means of reading a paper ballot is the use of optical 

character recognition (OCR) that still lacks of common industrial standards, or reading a 

condensed representation such as 2-D barcode (e.g. PDF-417) that has a public standard. 

In the case of the BMD system, the use of OCR coupled with a text-to-speech engine 

represents the most direct method that may be able to use third party or open source software. 

The accuracy is still not yet adequate to provide 100% accuracy and thus may cause confusion. 

Even if accuracy is not a problem, it will still have practical issues: 

 OCR with text-to-speech engine system must read a complete ballot including those not 

selected unless incorporating special software. It will be equivalent to doubling the time 

of voting that even the visually impaired voters may object to. 

 Even then, it still needs special programming to interpret and “read” only the voters filled 

ovals as a selection and read back interpretive words like “filled oval” and “unfilled oval”. 

By itself, COTS OCR will not know what a filled or unfilled oval means. And sometimes, 

the system may be required to pre-program to “read” the signature of the County Clerk 

of the jurisdiction or must be programmed to disregard along with all other timing and 

other marks. 

 If only those that have been selected are read, the use of the original software and 

database will be a pre-requisite. The reading from the same data stream that is used to 

print the voter verified paper ballot that some of the blind voters and their supporters 

object to. 

 Another potential issue is the objection to the use of the “computer voice” that some 

visually impaired voters object to. If a recorded voice is to be used, it will need yet a 

separate programming on top of the otherwise open-source or public domain software. 

We agree with many experts on the alternative approach of using barcode representation. To 

use a commonly available and open standard third party hardware and software system to 
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decipher a representation of the selections made and printed on the VVPB may be technically 

the only feasible and practical solution. The most commonly used machine-readable 

representations are 1-D and 2-D barcodes. Using the low data density of 1-D barcode will be 

inevitably cumbersome when there are multiple contests that are typical in US election. It may 

need as many lines of barcodes as the number of contests. 

The use of 2-D such as PDF-417 are common and have relatively high data capacity to 

accommodate the requirements of reading as much as 500-1000 bytes of characters of 20-50 

contests. Even with the data capacity of 2-D barcode, sometimes multiple barcodes may be 

required. There are technical difficulties inherent with this approach as well: 

 Typical barcode reading using a handheld device is not adequately accurate for close to 

100% read rate required for the election application. A detailed scanner such as 

standard fax machines or document imaging systems may be currently the only means 

that can provide such accuracy. As Mr. Noel Runyan1 noted, it may present difficulty for 

some visually impaired voters to manage and some of them are just physically not 

possible. 

 AVANTE believes it is possible to engineer a solution that the VVPB from the DRE or 

BMD and a directly printed 2-D barcode feed into an imaging device without manual 

handling. Such a system may have to be developed by a third party or by the original 

manufacturer of the system in terms of hardware “adaptation”. This third party will have 

to be responsible to develop software to automatically read the barcode and ignore the 

rest. It may not be as independent and certainly not COTS with an open standard 

anymore. 

 To be totally independent of the original voting system, the only possible read back voice 

is again, synthesized voices. Some visually impaired voters may find it objectionable. 

In short, we have several options but none are perfect. Like Mr. Runyan, we believe something 

has to be compromised. This is the state of our technological know-how. We are sure we will be 

able to continuously improve on them over time. Here are the choices with it’s limitation and 

costs: 

1. Use a text-to-speech synthesized voice (may incorporate recorded voice of candidates) 

to read back what was printed from the data stream that is sent to the printer of VVPB. 

The provisions and points to be aware of are: 

 At least the portion of such read back software be open source to allow 

independent verification. 

 Incorporate a third party developed software module that is open source (and 

better yet a public domain developed with sponsorship from EAC) to read the 

data stream using the database table provided by the manufacturer of the 

voting systems. 

 This approach costs almost nothing. They are available today from all 

manufacturers that are providing VVPB solution. 

2. Use a text-to-speech synthesized voice to read the 2D barcode representations of the 

selections and other relevant ballot identifiers. The provisions and points to be aware of 

are: 

 

1 “Improving Access to Voting-A Report on the Technology for Accessible Voting Systems”, By Noel Runyan; February 14, 2007 

(http://demos.org/pubs/improving_access.doc) 
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 Only limited ballot-marking devices such as those made by AVANTE and 

Populex have the capability to print 2-D barcode. The more popular 

AutoMARK system is not currently programmed with such capability. 

 All visually impaired voters must accept the synthesized voice. 

 This approach must still incorporate a third party developed software module 

to extract the barcode data and ignore the rest of the printed data. 

 This third party developer may be sponsored by EAC to provide a public 

domain software module but must also work with the original voting system 

manufacturer to ensure proper adaptation to accept the VVPB in whatever 

form-factor. 

 It costs at least $2,000 for physical hardware adaptation and incorporation of 

another computer independent of the original voting system. If such ballotreading module is to be loaded into the original voting system, some form of 

“handshake” must be worked out. For the lesser independence, the cost may 

be reduced to $1000 each. 

We hope it is clear to all that it is not the intent of AVANTE to discourage and/or encourage 

specific approaches. We only wish to point out the reality and facts of the current available 

technologies and those that have been incorporated in our nation’s voting systems today.