The State of Michigan is providing communities with electronic voting equipment that will make the paper optical-scan ballots used in Michigan's elections accessible to people with disabilities.

Beginning with the August primary, every polling place in the state will be equipped with an Automark Voter Assist Terminal, which is a touch-screen style ballot marking device that neither counts nor stores votes. Instead, it acts as a sophisticated pen that enables votes who cannot mark a paper ballot in the traditional way to make their selections privately and independently while still using a variety of accessibility features such as audio prompts coupled with tactile controls, or alternative input devices, such as a sip-puff tube.

Once a voter has made his or her selections using the Automark, the machine marks the ballot accordingly and returns it to the voter, who then inserts it into the tabulator to be counted in the same manner as the ballots of all other voters.

"This is a huge step forward for the rights of the people with disabilities, many of whom have traditionally been denied their right to cast a secret ballot," said Tom Masseau, director of government and media relations for Michigan Protection and Advocacy Service, Incorporated.

The purchase of this system brings the state into compliance with the Help America Vote Act of 2002, a federal law which, among various mandatory election reforms, required states to provide at least one accessible voting device per polling place by this year. The act also provided the federal funds to obtain the machines.