In the warm sunlight bathing the front porch of Margaret Taylor’s South 14th Street home, faint boxes are barely visible on her absentee ballot for the May 6 Democratic Party primary. According to instructions on the ballot, the boxes are vital because they are what voters must fill in to have their votes counted for various candidates. Voters must fill in the boxes across from the names of the candidates they support. However, when Taylor stands up and takes her ballot into her home, the reduced lighting makes the lightly shaded boxes nearly invisible. “I have a lot of trouble seeing it,” Taylor said. “You gotta really look hard.” Taylor, 82, a former Democratic Party vice precinct committee person and longtime activist in local politics, has been voting since she was legally eligible, and this is the first time she’s seen a ballot like this one, she said. She worries that the boxes may be difficult for older people or those with weak eyesight to see. “I think it’s unfair to everyone on that ballot,” she said, adding that other people she has spoken with share her concern.
Dave Crockett, Vigo County clerk, said he sympathizes with Taylor and anyone else who has difficulty seeing the boxes. In fact, when he received the first copies of the newly printed absentee ballots in mid-March, his office immediately contacted RBM Consulting, the Chicago-based maker of election equipment who produced the ballots.
Unfortunately, he said, RBM said the boxes are as dark as the current technology will permit.
“If there was something I could do to darken that up, I’d do it,” said Crockett, who was reached by telephone late Wednesday. “We did try.”
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