Minutes
Marin County Elections Department
Voting Accessibility Advisory Committee (VAAC)
April 10, 2025, 2:30 p.m.
Virtual (Zoom) Meeting
Attendees
Fred Nisen, Disability Rights California
Lynda Roberts, Registrar of Voters
Colleen Ksanda, Vote Centers/Election Workers
Eliabeth Iwamiya, Student Elections Ambassador Program (SEAP) / Election Outreach
Danny Straub, Election Outreach
Welcome
Lynda Roberts opened the meeting and thanked everyone for attending.
Outreach Listening Session
After starting the meeting, the group agreed that email would be the best way to gather information about outreach and would give committee members time to consider ideas. The following questions were emailed to the VAAC members on Friday, April 11.
- What kind of messaging would be important to include in the 2026 election cycle?
- What message about the accessible voting machines is important to communicate?
- What specific communities should we be reaching out to? Who would benefit most from knowing more about these machines?
- How and where should we deliver those messages?
- How do the communities that would benefit most from our accessible voting machines consume advertising?
- How can we communicate our message authentically?
- Is there a message that would resonate with our accessibility communities and also work for the whole county?
- Is there a message the accessibility community specifically could benefit from?
- What are some of the biggest or most common challenges to participating in elections and how can we address them through outreach?
The outreach team’s main concern is finding the right people to focus on and communicating with them in an effective way through the proper channels.
Next Meeting
The next quarterly meeting will be held on July 10, 2:30-3:30 PM via Zoom.
The meeting adjourned at 2:40 PM.
Marin County Elections Department
Voting Accessibility Advisory Committee (VAAC)
February 4, 2025, 2:30 p.m.
Virtual (Zoom) Meeting
Attendees
Ted Jackson, Marin Center for Independent Living
Suzanne Levine, Marin County Information Services and Technology Digital Accessibility
Fred Nisen, Disability Rights California
Lynda Roberts, Registrar of Voters
Colleen Ksanda, Vote Centers/Election Workers
Eliabeth Iwamiya, Student Elections Ambassador Program (SEAP) / Election Outreach
Danny Straub, Election Outreach
Welcome
Lynda Roberts opened the meeting and thanked everyone for attending.
November 2024 General Election Review
Ballot Marking Device (BMD) Support Report—Suzanne Levine
A team of seven IST employees (trained by the Elections Department) visited 21 vote centers on November 2nd, 4th, and 5th. The team used a new digital checklist on an iPad—the team will refine this process before the next election cycle. The checklist from March compared to November showed improvements indicating that election worker training is effective. BMD tablets not being positioned at the edge of the table continues to be the biggest issue. The IST team would like a longer training session and will work with Elections Logistics to arrange the hands-on training. Suzanne reviewed photos from various locations and suggested that someone with proper knowledge mark floors in advance to indicate where units should be set up.
The in-field support program started with the 2020 primary election and the team is seeing improved awareness and more welcoming workers. Maintaining the program will continue to improve awareness. People may also be more used to the system since it was implemented in 2019.
Vote Center Program Coordinator Updates—Colleen Ksanda
- Reviewed webinar with Marin Ventures, a local non-profit community advocacy group for people with developmental disabilities. During the webinar Colleen reviewed the following: services offered at vote centers for voters with physical disabilities; how voting works; voter information guides; and conditional voter registration. Colleen reminded the group that it is not required to vote the entire ballot—people can vote only for what they want to and their votes will count. She also reminded the group that conservatorship does not exclude a person from voting unless specified by a judge. Colleen referred to the Easy Voter Guide published by the League of Women Voters that contains information about state measures.
Ted Jackson said Disability Rights California does a great job of training and provides a lot of specific information to people with developmental disabilities. Ted has also done trainings on this topic and will follow-up with Marin Ventures about contacting DRC and MCIL in the future. - Reviewed new BMD privacy screen that was demonstrated at training classes. The screen is a 6-foot high tri-fold cardboard panel. Election workers were instructed to keep the screen at the BMD station so it would be available to voters if requested. The instruction manual includes information about the new screen and the screen was demonstrated in class. Each Vote Center location had one screen. The screen received positive reviews at the classes from the Vote Center Coordinators who have had difficulty in the past setting up all three BMDs without the touchscreen facing into the voting room. A photo showing better BMD set-up is on the cover of the instruction manual to help guide workers; this photo could be replaced with a photo showing the BMD at the edge of the table, which may help remind workers about placement. The Elections Department did not receive feedback from the Coordinators about whether the privacy screen was used at the vote centers. According to November’s ballot statements, five voters at five different vote centers used the BMDs to mark their ballot.
- Reviewed the disability sensitivity training that was presented by Laney Davidson, Marin County Disability Access Program. Laney gave the 30-minute presentation each day of training for Vote Center Coordinators; the training was well received. The training reviewed the following: best practices for assisting voters with disabilities; reminders that not all disabilities are visible; appropriate language terms; tips on mobility devices; interacting with people; and a new law allowing all animals to be assistance animals. Training packets included the PowerPoint presentation.
- Reviewed the Asian Law Caucus report and changes that were implemented for November. Magnifying glasses and signature guides were placed with the language materials so they were more prominent. The ALC survey noted that these items were more visible at 94% of the sites.
One member suggested that the VAAC and LAAC meet together so both learn from each other; perhaps have a joint meeting once a year. This could enhance both committees. Lynda Roberts will bring this up at the April LAAC meeting.
Vote Center Statistics comparing March 2024 and November 2024 elections—Lynda Roberts
Elections Department Vote Center open 29 days to 11 days before Election Day:
- Mar: 61 voters
- Nov: 379 voters
Vote Centers open 10 days before Election Day through Election Day:
- Mar: 5,480
- Nov: 13,589
Election Day remains the most popular voting day:
- Mar: 4,772
- Nov: 10,008
Three most popular locations (total voters):
- Mar: 1) American Legion Hall, San Anselmo (503); 2) Fairfax Women’s Club (465); 3) Elections Department Office (458)
- Nov: 1) Elections Department Office (1,569); 2) Fairfax Women’s Club (955); 3) Redwoods Presbyterian, Larkspur (953)
Accessibility Surveys
Danny Straub reviewed plans to work with a company called BlueDAG to acquire software for accessibility audits. The in-house elections team will revisit vote centers to catalogue and document all accessibility points outlined by the state and will show what needs to be mitigated. Using the new software will allow creation of a document for election workers.
Suzanne reminded the team that vendors providing software need to go through an IST review.
Student Election Ambassador Program (SEAP) Update
Elizabeth Iwamiya gave the following report.
- SEAP training was reconfigured to be online, interactive, and easy to complete while remaining effective. The training is broken into three parts: 1) importance of voting; 2) registration / pre-registration; 3) review of SEAP program outreach amongst peers and general community.
- Elizabeth used Adobe Captivate to create the training because of its accessibility tools. This past fall, a student with a vision disability (no sight) applied to the program and took the online training. The student said the training was fantastic, there were no problems.
- A past SEAP student is still an active member of the program and is on the committee to help plan the upcoming Youth Town Hall.
Next Meeting
The next quarterly meeting will be held on April 10, 2:30-3:30 PM via Zoom.
The meeting adjourned at 3:30 PM.