I am writing again to express my disappointment at the hurdles faced by blind and disabled voters in West Haven. For the second year in a row, while the law clearly states that there has to be accessible voting at every polling place, I arrived at 200 Oak Street this morning with my wife, only to find the accessible, vote-by-phone wasn't set up yet, and the poll workers didn't know how to use it.

In 2006, the vote-by-phone system was used in Connecticut for the first time. While it worked great for some, others faced hour long waits, inept poll workers, human or machine malfunction, or bewildered volunteers who said they'd never heard of it. This year we were assured things would be better, but my blood pressure disagrees.

This morning I was first told that they had to find the directions, then they had to find the correct numbers, and finally I was able to vote - but the fun wasn't over yet. The mandatory paper-trail took a few minutes to get faxed, and then since they were using last year's paper (which was curled) the paper became jammed.

So, did the Secretary of State lie to us, or are West Haven election officials especially ignorant or incompetent?

This morning, after my hour-long voting experience, I volunteered to the Registrar to come check out the system in advance for them next year-I think accessible voting is that important. I only hope the town of West Haven takes it seriously, too.

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