By Jackie Crosby, Star Tribune

(Editor’s Note: This article was published in the Star Tribune on September 12, 2006.  Joyce Scanlan is president of the NFB of Minnesota, as well as a co-founder and retired Executive Director of Blindness: Learning in New Dimensions (BLIND).  Judy Sanders is secretary of the NFB of Minnesota.  Both are active members of the NFB of Minnesota Metro Chapter.)

Glaucoma stole Joyce Scanlan's eyesight in the mid-1960s, and she was shocked when she voted for the first time as a blind person.

"There were two people in that little booth with me," she recalled of the 1968 election. "I remember thinking, 'This doesn't seem right.' It was imposing on my privacy as far as I was concerned."

Today, as part of a federal mandate, Scanlan and thousands of other disabled Minnesotans will be able to vote in private for the first time by using a ballot-marking computer called the AutoMARK Voter Assist Terminal.

"It's about time," said Scanlan, of Minneapolis, who founded and ran Blind Inc., a training center, from 1987 until she retired in 2003. The center teaches blind people how to function independently.

More than a half-million Minnesota adults have disabilities, according to the U.S. Census, but it's hard to say how many people could take advantage of the AutoMARK.

Disability advocates suspect that many have stayed away from the voting booth because of the hurdles involved. Until now, disabled voters have had to rely on a friend or relative to fill out a ballot, or they had two election judges from different parties mark and witness their choices.

Minnesota is among 28 states using the AutoMARK, which is made by Election Systems and Software of Omaha. They cost about $5,000 each, and will be available at all 3,500 polling places in the state, said Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer.

Users listen to choices through headphones or see them in enlarged type. Voters mark ballots by touching the screen, using a keypad with Braille or by inhaling or puffing on an air tube, which allows people who are paralyzed or don't have steady control of their hands to vote. However, the machine cannot help those who are both deaf and blind.

Minnesota received $35 million of a $3 billion nationwide federal grant as part of the Help America Vote Act.

The bill required all states to make it possible for every citizen to vote privately and independently by 2006.

"It's a huge step forward," said Judy Sanders, a member of the National Federation of the Blind. She has worked with others the past three years to test the AutoMARK, and now is working with the secretary of state's office to get the word out.

"It's going to take some time for people to learn about it and get comfortable," she said. "Some people are machine-phobic, and that's OK. They can still ask for help or vote the way they have in the past."

She said she and others on a voter-outreach team have demonstrated the machine the past few months at fairs and local chapters of United Cerebral Palsy and National Federation of the Blind as well as at private agencies that serve the disabled.

Scanlan was among those who got a sneak preview of the AutoMARK. She says that she's "mostly not a techie person," but that the excitement of being able to vote by herself far outweighs her discomfort.

"I'm looking forward to it," she said. "I have the right to mark my own ballot and not have anyone else know who I voted for."

(Copyright 2006 Star Tribune. Republished with permission of Star Tribune, Minneapolis-St. Paul. No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the written consent of Star Tribune.)