2004-10-01 Committee on People with Disabilities Minutes

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trained because of a shortage of drivers. This question is for T. Spinola-Campbell to answer. B. Whitney asked for clarification on why T. Spinola-Campbell forwarded a request for deaf helpers to assist people who are deaf at walk-ins to the Office of Elections. J. Souza explained that a quarter of the people on this island dont understand English interpreters or sign language. Therefore, he suggested that the Office of Elections have a deaf person present who can help deaf people in thevoting area. J. Souza said he did not have any problems when he went to vote. However, the people in the Office of Elections had a lot of problems. The election officials did not know how to work the voting machine. He was able to explain to them how to use it because he had taken the training. In addition, he asked to be a deaf helper at the election site and the election official said you have to be able to hear and speak. D. Cowdrey explained that her son has a learning disability and he does vote. They wenttothevotingsiteahalfhourbeforeclosing.Hersonrequestedavotingmachine and he was the first one that day to use that machine. The election official had to read the manual and she didnt really know what was going on. As a result, D. Cowdrey ended up reading the directions for her son instead of the election official. She felt he would have done better with a paper ballot than with the voting machine. B. Whitney said her voting experience was very good. There was some confusion that the people in the polling places didnt understand that the voting machines are suppose to be available to everyone. She heard from many people that the election officials were confused on how to use the voting machines. She had a friend that probably should have used the jelly bean switches. Nobody offered them to the person so they didnt know they were available. B. Whitney said she was hoping that more training will occur before the next election in November. J. Hartman stated that this was the first year he had trouble at the polling place. For wheelchair users, there is a big tent with the international symbol of accessibility. He went into the voting booth and there was nothing in there, except some extra table legs. S. Golden mentioned that she was offered a helper, but she was not offered the voting machine during absentee voting in Kona. However, B. Whitney pointed out that shed heard that the voting machine was not available before the election. S. Smockhoffmann reported that their agency received a HAVA Grant from the federal government. They used the grant to check all the private voting sites to make sure they were accessible and made a list of those that were not. She suggested that people who encounter any problems such as voting, accessibility, etc. during the general election could file a report with her. Her phone number is 325-5123. 3