Disabled-rights groups have been some of the strongest supporters of electronic voting, but blind voters in Santa Clara County said the machines performed poorly and were anything but user-friendly in the March election.

``Very few of our members were able to vote privately, independently, despite Santa Clara County's supposed `accessible' touch screens,'' Dawn Wilcox, president of the Silicon Valley Council of the Blind, wrote in a letter to the registrar of voters after the March primary. ``I feel this is an unacceptable state of affairs.''

Concern about the security of electronic voting machines has set off a national debate about the benefits of digital ballots. They were supposed to enfranchise 10 million blind Americans who have never cast a ballot without assistance. But computer scientists have warned that the machines' software code is uniquely vulnerable to error and fraud. The machines' reliability also has been questioned after a range of reports of mechanical glitches during the California primary and elsewhere.

Wilcox said in an interview that she surveyed more than 50 members of her group after hearing anecdotal accounts of Election Day snafus. Only two members said the machines had functioned smoothly. About a dozen provided detailed descriptions of the problems they experienced using the audio technology that was supposed to guide them through the ballot and help them cast a vote in secret.

Four voters said the audio function did not appear to work at all. Others waited up to half an hour for poll workers to trouble-shoot the devices. Sam Chen, a retired college professor, said he was happy to finally hear an initial message, but then the machine balked. After struggling for an hour, Chen asked a poll worker to cast a ballot on his behalf. ``I wish I had voted on my own,'' he said.

Elaine Larson, assistant registrar of voters in Santa Clara County, said poll workers were given extensive training and written materials but many still had trouble activating the audio equipment on the Sequoia Voting Systems machines. ``It was a new system that had not been used before,'' she said.

Larson said she did not believe the machines malfunctioned and said the county would try to give poll workers more hands-on experience before the November election. She said the county also would instruct poll workers to set up the audio equipment before voters arrived.

Modifications due

Sequoia spokesman Alfie Charles said the company would factor the comments into future design enhancements. He said some earlier modifications already had been submitted for approval by federal and state certifying bodies. ``We want to continue to make our products as user-friendly as possible,'' he said.

Wilcox's survey of blind voters has roiled the disabled-rights community, which lobbied heavily for a federal law requiring every polling place in every state to provide at least one electronic voting machine equipped for disabled voters by 2006.

Last week, three disabled-rights organizations sued California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley for prohibiting the use of electronic machines unless they meet stringent security requirements.

``The secretary's decertification orders will deny voters with disabilities the right to vote independently, in secret and without third-party assistance,'' the lawsuit stated.

Shelley has said he is concerned that electronic machines, which record votes digitally, are not ``stable, reliable and secure enough'' to be used until they produce paper receipts of ballots cast.

The report by the Silicon Valley Council of the Blind shows ``the gap between the advertised accessibility of these machines and the reality,'' said Will Doherty, an executive director of the Verified Voting Foundation, an advocacy group that supports Shelley's directive.

Survey questioned

John McDermott, an attorney representing the American Association of People With Disabilities, the California Council of the Blind, the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers and 12 disabled voters in the suit against Shelley, said he did not believe the Silicon Valley survey was representative.

Only one of the plaintiffs suing Shelley had used an accessible voting machine, also known as touch screens. However, McDermott said he was confident ``most disabled individuals with visual and manual disabilities are totally in favor of touch screens.''

Noel Runyan, a blind voter and computer scientist who is an expert in designing accessible systems, said touch screens are a good idea in theory, but they need a thorough redesign to work in practice. He said the voting companies appeared to have ignored feedback they solicited from groups of blind voters as they were developing their systems.

Voters' complaints

Among the criticism provided by voters was poor sound quality, delayed response time and braille that was positioned so awkwardly it could only be read upside down. Chen, the college professor, also said the audio message required blind voters to press a yellow button. ``Yellow means nothing to me,'' Chen said.

``I personally want them to be decertified for this election,'' Runyan said. ``We need to make a strong statement that all these machines need to be redesigned on the user interface side. We've got a mistake here.''