2006-06-02 Committee on People with Disabilities Minutes

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and be able to read and speak English. The Office of Elections is also looking for volunteers to work as poll workers. A precinct official will receive $85 a day, a voting assistant official will receive $95 a day, and a chair will receive a $110 a day. The training for precinct officials includes a portion of that training that has to do with working with people with disabilities when they come to the polling place. The meeting was recessed at 11:30 a.m. The meeting was reconvened at 11:40 a.m. S. Nago reported that one of the requirements of HAVA was accessible voting for all individuals. There was a deadline of January 1, 2006 to meet that requirement. The State actually went ahead and did it for the 2004 election. Unfortunately, the contract for 2004-2006 was cancelled at the end of 2004 because of protest by a vendor. Therefore, to meet the 2006 requirement the State had to go out with anotherRFPtogetanothersystemintothepollingplace.In2005,theLegislature passed a requirement for a voter verifiable paper audit trail which means that the electronic voting system need to print out a paper receipt for the voters to verify prior to casting your ballot. This will be a new feature that people will see on the electronic voting system this election. J. Souza asked if all the people who work in the voting office will have training and know how to use the voting machine when the RFP is accepted. S. Nago said there was a time issue during the 2004 election, but there is more awareness now. A. Mitchener asked if the Office of Elections is keeping track of how people with disabilities vote, how many people are using the different kinds of devices, and how many people with disabilities use absentee ballots. S. Nago responded that they keep track on how many times the voting machine was used, but not by whom. T. Spinola-Campbell asked if the Office of Elections received any complaints statewide during the last election from people who felt it was inaccessible. D. Yoshina said that 85 percent of the people who used the voting machines liked the machines. There is a small minority that said they didnt like the machine because they were more concern about whether they could trust the machine. However, they received a lot of good comments from individuals with disabilities who were really happy to be able to vote. D. Yoshina reported that he is working with Joan Bird whether to have the outreach workers attend a training session. They have a statewide training program and a statewide manual. The vendors will be providing onsite training for poll workers and the chairs. The County Clerks Office work very closely with the Office of Elections in the training process. S. Scadden asked if there is an age requirement for a poll worker. D. Yoshina responded that a poll worker needs to be a registered voter or pre-register at 16 4