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Blind man struggled to cast ballot in OC
November 6th, 2008, 12:46 pm · 23 Comments · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
Scott Quinlan of Fountain Valley lost his sight three years ago. He served in the US Army from 1983 through 1988; he worked as an auto mechanic, then an aircraft mechanic; and then the complications of adult-onset diabetes left him blind.
Quinlan is a can-do type of guy. He’s back in school, studying for his psychology degree, hopes to become and advocate for the blind. He’s not the type to let a disability stop him from living a full life.
So when Election Day rolled around on Tuesday, Quinlan did as he has been done for years: Headed to his polling place at the Tamura School to do his civic duty.
It was about 2 p.m. He had a small window of opportunity: about three hours before his next class started at Golden West College.
Each polling place in Orange County is supposed to be equipped with an electronic voting machine especially adapted for the handicapped. But the machine at Tamura School wasn’t working.
So Quinlan was sent to another polling place - a church a few blocks away - where he encountered yet another non-operational voting machine for the handicapped. “The poll workers were very nice and tried to be very accommodating,” he said. “They wanted someone to go into the booth with me to help me vote.”
He didn’t like that idea. The secret ballot thing and all; he wasn’t 
comfortable with someone knowing exactly how he voted on all the issues. “I’m a veteran,” he said. “I put my life on the line for this country. I want to be able to vote on my own.”
Frustrated, Quinlan went home and called the Orange County Registrar of Voters office in Santa Ana, the czars of the election process. Not much luck. Then he called Congressman Dana Rohrabacher’s office. They told him to try the California Secretary of State. And there he lodged his complaint.
By now, it was time to get back to school for his 6 p.m. class. That’s when his phone rang. “Can you go back to your polling place?” an official said. “We’ll have someone there to fix the machine.” Quinlan said he couldn’t; he had to go to class. ”I’m so sorry you won’t be able to vote,” the official said. “Yeah,” Quinlan responded. “So am I.”
In class, Quinlan put his phone on vibrate. At 6:45, it started to wriggle. He ignored it. A minute later, it went off again. And again. He started to worry that something was wrong, and left class to see what was going on.
It was the county Registrar’s office, saying it had a working machine loaded up and ready to go and would deliver it to him. He left class at 7:20, met the Registrar’s people at his home at 7:45, and cast his vote.
The polls closed at 8 p.m. Barack Obama was declared president-elect just a few minutes later.
“They did do a good job in getting out and recording my vote, and I’m glad it got rectified,” Quinlan said. “But this shouldn’t have to happen. One machine goes down, why isn’t there a backup? Airplanes have three engines, so if one goes out, there’s a backup engine.”
Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley, who spent the day roving from polling place to polling place until the polls closed, said the machine at Quinlan’s station was offline for just a small period of time - though that, of course, didn’t help Quinlan. There is one at every polling station - doubling that number by having two would be a large expense - and breakdowns are rare. It’s a shame that Quinlan was sent to another polling place where the machine was also down - “What are the odds?” Kelley asked - but, things happen.
Quinlan’s problem came to Kelley’s attention shortly after 6 p.m., “and I said, without question, we have to get this guy to vote,” Kelley said. A happy ending to a story like that makes the whole night worthwhile.
Overall, Election Day went very smoothly, but there are always glitches. “I’m just pretty pleased,” Kelley said. “For the magnitude of the election and the work the men and woman put into this thing, I feel really good about it. I was a lot more busy throughout the day trying to keep the peace between Prop. 8 folks and campaign sign and electioneering issues than with mechanical problems or running out of ballots. That’s when I know things are going pretty well.”
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My father in law is so blind he just sees shadows so he votes absentee ballot and uses a magnifying glass to read. It takes him hours to vote. This might be something Quinlan can try it might make things easier for him as everyone should get to vote.
caseclosed, the point is he shouldn’t have to “try to make things work”. Blind or not he has every right to vote with out issues at his given polling place. I hope these issues are cleared out soon.
This is an amazing story of the Community coming together to help ensure everyone had a chance to vote.
Going to your home! Kudos to the entire team of election volunteers for making this a great story.
I should of asked for them to bring me a machine after someone attempted to block my path the polling place. The stress of having to fight people to get pass them to a polling place needs fixed.
I understand that they want you to vote a certain way - which I was considering to do up to that point - but keep it on the street and off the property of the polling place, please.
With the new home service we are one step closer to voting on the internet.
Does Orange County have Mail-In-Voting Ballots for blind people? I would make sure all my ballots were mailed to me as an absentee voter and drop them off at the polling place on election day to avoid future problems.
My own story I was offended once I got pass the people trying to block me from voting to be forced to sit in a “disabled” voting booth to cast my ballot. Talk about adding insult to injury.
At least I got to vote.
I blindly casted my vote. Does that count?
Five GOLD STARS for Registrar of Voters Neal Kelley!
I just want to say good job the the ROV employees that have to put up with the voters that treat them nasty and abuse them for doing their job. Good job to the ROV for getting this guy to vote it may have taken a little longer then he had planed but they got the job done
It is great they tried to make this situatuion right, but the only reason the OC Registrar did anything was because Quinlan called his congressman to complain. I am in a wheelchair and I use to vote at the polling place, but now I vote absentee because of problems like this.
I have a short leg which makes walking distances and standing in lines difficult. Our polling place is in an area of Cypress that parking is difficult to find near the polling place. It involves a possible long walk and waiting in line. To avoid these problems, my husband & I voted by absentee ballot.
As good as that sounds, it means the results are usually already in by the time my vote is opened. I”m not sure it really matters to vote by mail.
The best way we found to vote was in the mall–which we did a year ago. We parked in handicap parking & the line was short. We didn’t think that would work this year.
Alan- where did someone block your path to vote hope it wasnt those black panthers we saw on t.v.
When is Neal Kelley going to run for Secretary of State? The website in Sacramento was down all Election Night! ocvote.com was up and running all night long! He knows how to run things right!
I worked the Poll in Mission Viejo at an Elementary School.
We had two of the Handicapped Machines…
and didn’t get any blind people,
but had a few wheel chairs come in.
I was worried about vote stealing, etc…
but it seemed that the worst that could be said
At least at our Poll, was a little incompetence,
due to the lack of experienced workers,
but we worked through that as best we could…
Just like this story about the Blind guy.
But, No matter how hard you try…
If something can go wrong…
it will try to..
did anyone have the heart to tell him his vote didn’t really matter anyway?
It is funny that a lot of people think the end of this story is a victory for Scott. It is not a victory it is a gigantic hassle. A hassle that blind people have to face everyday. I am Scott’s Voc.Rehab. Counselor and I think it is shameful that the equipment was not working at the first place, that he was required to travel to another polling place and then had to struggle to get to vote.
By the way Scott is totally blind, he can not use a magnifier and should not have to vote absentee! He should be able to vote the way most of us do at the polling place. The technology has been developed and is in place it should work the one day of the year it is supposed to be available.
Once again it is demonstrated that the systems that are designed to accomodate are much more disabled than Scott!
So the Registrar Office does not make a Braille Ballot?
I thought a few years ago the Braille Institute had messed up on the ballots or something in the printing
For the record the headphones in my booth worked.
Again, it is wonderful that the Community comes together to help others and make it possible for them to vote.
This would never happen just 10 years ago.
You know I just thought about it.
How much does the OC Registrar Voters Office spend of our tax dollars (seeing this is the tax dollar watchdog forum) in accommodatingly different languages(since Braille is considered a language)?
In the case referenced here it merely looks like it was volunteer expense in helping him vote; however, it would be good to see that expense and talk about it.
Only 10% of blind can actually read Braille so it is a HUGE misconception that a Braille ballot would help - the Braille institute is not just about teaching Braille, it is about teaching them to be productive individuals. Braille is only one class they offer along with golf, dance life skills, etc. By the way I am SCOTT”S WIFE and the reason he wanted to vote at his polling place is so that he is in control of his vote. If he did an absentee ballot he would not be able to fill it out himself, he would have to rely on someone else. At the polling place he is able to LISTEN and cast his vote his own way as he should be able to do. He is proud to be able to vote and NOTHING keeps him down - he plays golf, is going to college to start a new career since becoming blind, participates in community service, is a PROUD member of the Lions Club and even cooks!!! So please don’t write off the blind as they should just sit at home and do nothing, they should be able to do all we do.
It was interesting listening to the ballot when I was forced to use the one at my polling place.
This is such a great story about how People came together to make sure your husband could vote at his home of all places. However, he was lucky that he had such a caring community to help him. Who knows how many election regulations they broken removing the machine from the polling place to bring it to your husband but they did not care about the rules and went over and above to help each other.
In the future he might not be so lucky and not be able to vote if the machine is broken. By getting an absentee ballot he then has even more choices on the way he elects to cast his ballot. He can still surrender the ballot at the polling place and vote there in person if the machine is working.
I am surprised that they even arranged for him to go to another polling place. This was an amazing group of people that helped your husband.
Does he get his Election Pamphlet in audio format? This might also help him fully understand each thing that he is voting on instead of relying on others and their opinions.
It might take time to learn another language that can enable him to be more involved as it seems he already has motivation to do such with his life.
Again this is an amazing story of People caring for someone else.
Scott has been my best friend since 1982, Thick and Thin, I am so proud of him for speaking his mind and trying to set things right. He is a true hero for all of us.
To the person that said, “did anyone have the heart to tell him his vote didn’t really matter anyway?”
EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO VOTE!!!!!!
I agree Jeff and the Community came together and helped make this a wonderful story.
Everyone involved in getting a voting booth set up in his home are hero’s. The Registrar Voters Office needs to acknowledge them all.
I would not call this a success story at all. He was sent to 2 places with broken machines (unacceptable), then he had to make 3 phone calls with each person passing the buck (unacceptable), then they fixed the machine but their offer was for him to come back (unacceptable), when he is unable to come back they say “sorry you wont be able to vote”(unacceptable), finally the Head Cheese aka Registrar of Voters takes the unit to his house. (very acceptable!). Instead of the first poll worker arranging to have a working unit delivered to the man immediately he gets the run around and he has to do all the legwork so he can vote. Nobody cares for him. Considering the ROV only has to work 1 day every 2 years I would call this disgusting. So sad when a blind veteran has to fight almost as hard to vote than he did for all of our freedoms.
There is always one idiot who wants to make reference to Race, i.e. the Black Panthers.
No one else has made racial issues relative to this circumstance and further, this situation has nothing whatsoever to do with Race.
It is about voting Rucka Ruck. Keep it real and get a grip on reality.
Oh sorry it was not the Black Panthers that were trying to stop me from voting. It was some No on 8 guy who stepped out from behind a trash can as people walked towards the polling place and stood right in front of everyone making us all stop in our footsteps.
One lady in the group of about 9 of us that were walking towards the polling place asked the question, “Can I go vote?” His reply made me laugh, “Do you know how to vote on Prop 8?” while hold a No on 8 bumper sticker in his hands.
I laughed and said “Get out of our way so we can vote.” Wish everyone laughed in the group and believe it or not one of the voters in our group said I was going to vote No up until now. They have to let People vote (as we can see now with the protest they really did not want People to vote - so maybe it was like the Black Panthers; however, we need a new name for them).
JimboOC he did not have to fight to vote - the Community came together and delivered a voting booth to his home. This story is about how the Community comes together for others. The other solution would be to spend $5 Million on additional machines (based on the average mentioned in the next article).
Before you start attacking the polling workers who likely did not have a computer science degree nor would you want to see some poll worker TAMPERING with a voting machine as you cast your own.
Can you picture seeing a poll worker with a screwdriver in his hand taking apart the machine? You would have a lot of thoughts racing through your head on what exactly the person was doing to the machine. That headline would of made some news.
However, maybe Teri has a point that another $5 Million for “backup” machines would of avoided the entire problem.
I like the headline that the Community still cares to help People.