The Kenai Peninsula Borough, earlier this year, voted to appropriate funds and authorize the Borough Clerk to contract for necessary voting machines, software and related equipment to provide an accessible voting system for people with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires a full and equal opportunity to vote for all eligible voters and an accessible voting system for people with disabilities.
On Thursday, residents of the Kenai Peninsula Borough got to check out the new voting systems before the municipal elections, which are scheduled for October 5.
Borough Clerk Johni Blankenship told KSRM:
“We have brand new equipment this year that we purchased it in June, I think we got it all here. The tabulators will look very similar to what people are used to, but what we have this year, which is new, is the touch screen machine which is able to be utilized by people that may have disabilities. It’s a touch screen, which is a ballot marking device, which allows you to either vote your ballot through audio, vote your ballot through braille handheld system and then it will, once you’re done casting your ballot, it will print your ballot will go through the same tabulator as all of the other ballots are going through. There’s one tabulator ready at each polling location.”
A complaint was filed following the October 6, 2015 borough election with the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights alleging discrimination on the basis of a physical disability due to the borough allegedly not accommodating vision disability by providing an accessible voting machine. As part of a conciliation agreement into the Richard Malley v. Kenai Peninsula Borough case in 2018, the borough committed to adopting a voting system to provide private, independent voting by visually impaired citizens that complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Blankenship also said:
“Every polling location will have the, what we call the ICX unit, which is the tablet, which is the ADA compliant piece. Every absentee voting station will also have the ADA compliant touchscreen.”
When talking election security:
“So the system is completely air gapped. We have a complete election server system, which is not connected to any other network within the borough. There’s no Wi-Fi, there’s no way to connect to that system. That was part of the election security and transparency ordinance that went through earlier this year.”
The municipal elections are scheduled for Tuesday, October 5. For more information, click here.