Secretary of State Corey Stapleton is asking for help from the legislature that would allow his office to change out a number of antiquated voting machines and replace them with machines more user-friendly with disabled voters.

“We’re just now getting the bill to the floor of the Senate,” said Stapleton. “We’re going to try to change the law just a little bit to allow for this very small percentage of people in the ADA community. Keep in mind that most of theme already vote by mail like many others do. The reality of the situation is that zero percent of the voters are using what we call the Auto Marks, and we’re going to upgrade that is we can come to a consensus that will allow us to deviate from a uniform ballot for these very few people who need help casting their ballot.”

Stapleton said this bill may just be able to bring a number of groups together over the issue of voting.

“In this case, I think there’s a good chance that we could get all of the counties, and the Secretary of State’s office, and the Feds, and the disability community all to agree,” he said. “If we do this right I think we can pull together a consensus. I’ve never seen it happen yet, but it’s undeniable that this equipment is getting old and we don’t want to buy that same old equipment again since nobody is using it.”

Stapleton said the cost would be minimal, since only one voting machine per polling place would be necessary.

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