OMAHA, Neb (KMTV) — Voting is a chance for all of us to have our voices heard but for generations many Nebraskans couldn’t vote on their own.
For blind and low vision Nebraskans a trusted friend or family members was needed to help them fill in ballots, but not this year.
“It’s extremely easy to use, it’s a very user friendly system and it gives me that complete independence of marking my own ballots,” said Ross Pollpeter with Outlook Enrichment.
On Friday Outlook Nebraska showed off this year’s Express Vote Machines.
Developed at Omaha’s Election Systems & Software, the machines offer audio options to walk voters through the choices on their ballots, blacks out the screen while a voter is casting their ballot for privacy, and also allows different accessibility options like changing text size or contrast. But the most important part, it lets voters cast the ballots by themselves.
“Very seamless and the instructions are very thorough. The only part I was nervous about at all was it’s been a while since ive used one of these,” said Dennis Nelson.
The process is simple, sit down, insert your ballot and let the machine walk you through the rest.
“Right now it’s saying, to begin voting please insert your card. Then it tells you what of these keys on the panel I was supposed to press,” said Nelson.
For voters like Ross and Dennis the Express Voting Machine is about much more than convenience.
It’s a chance to stand on their own while they perform their civic duty to vote.
“You don’t have to necessarily be visually impaired or totally blind to use a machine like this. I can think of a lot of people who have a hard time and don’t really want to ask someone for help, they can come in and just follow these instructions,” said Nelson.
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