Carson City tries to help visually impaired voters

With the help of a tape recorder and some textured paint, blind and visually impaired voters will be able to cast their ballots in Carson City this year without the help of someone else.

The move makes the capital the first city in the state to test a method which will allow blind and visually impaired voters to cast their own ballots.

Local activist Isabel Young pushed Mayor Ray Masayko and Clerk Alan Glover to try something to help visually impaired voters. Young said she read an article recently that started her thinking about the challenges of participating in the democratic process without sight.

"Do you realize that blind voters don't have a private ballot?" Young said. "I do. Why can't they?"

Young persuaded Masayko to buy a tape recorder and Glover to come up with a way for visually impaired voters to feel their way through their selections.

The new system didn't cost the city a cent. Craig Swope, executive director of Carson Access Television, recorded the ballot language onto a cassette. Glover's daughter took some "puff paint," a fabric paint that rises and hardens after application, to put arrows between a candidate's name and the slot on the ballot. Page by page, a person listens to the choices, counts the arrows until they find their choice and then votes.

Carson City resident Lin Gallagher, 62, who lost his sight when he was 3, tested the system for city officials Tuesday.

"There are three things we're told not to talk about and politics is one of them. How do you fill out a ballot without some discussion of politics?" Gallagher joked. "This is an opportunity to cast our own ballot. In general, anytime something comes along to help us participate, that's great. I can help spread the word in the blind community."

He also said the new system eliminates any possibility of someone voting "against the choice you would want them to make."

Gallagher's test of the system helped the city work out some of its minor flaws.

"The system seems to be well thought out," Gallagher said. "There were a couple of things that I didn't fully understand. Once I understood how things were supposed to work, it was easy."

Glover said visually impaired residents often vote via absentee ballot, or come with someone to help them vote. He said the new system would be used during early voting, which starts Oct. 21 and ends Nov. 3, but may not be used for the Nov. 7 general election.