Sabrina Rice was in tears after she fed her ballot into the tabulator on Tuesday afternoon.
She was finally able to vote by herself and was excited. Rice, who has been blind for about 15 years, hasn’t voted on her own for a long time because machines designed to allow voters to cast ballots independently had malfunctioned.
“It’s been a number of years since I’ve voted secretly and independently,” said Rice, of Detroit, after casting her ballot at the Unity Baptist Church. Because she’d voted while she had her sight, she didn’t think there should be a change because she lost it.
Later that day, over at another polling location, Edison Elementary School, Richard Clay was just as pleased.
“This was a very good voting experience,” said Clay, president of the Detroit Advocates of the Blind.
Detroiter Richard Clay voted using a VAT at Edison Elementary School on Election Day. Clay is the president of Detroit Advocates of the Blind. (Credit: Johnathan Shephard for BridgeDetroit)
During the August primary, what’s known as the voter assist terminal (VAT) — a device with accommodations designed to allow people to vote independently and secretly — failed, even after several attempts that took about an hour, he said. A poll worker had to help Clay fill out his ballot. It’s an experience that left him feeling angry, disappointed and stripped of his rights as a voter.
Rice and her husband, Darryl Rice, who is also blind, waited three and a half hours during the primary and didn’t end up voting because the machine didn’t work.
Sabrina and Darryl Rice, a husband-and-wife pair who are both blind, voted using a VAT at Unity Baptist Church on Election Day. (Credit: Johnathan Shephard for BridgeDetroit)
They were among the Detroiters who raised the alarm about accessibility at the polls in recent weeks. In late September, members of the blind community told Detroit City Council about their experiences with unreliable voting devices, saying the machines froze or they experienced long delays, and sought a change ahead of the November election. The Free Press and BridgeDetroit followed several voters on Election Day as they cast their ballots using VATs.
“It feels very, very good to see that the hard work that we’ve been putting in has paid off and that this VAT machine, which was not working just a couple of months ago (is) now working today,” said Clay.
He estimates that, over the past 5 years, the VAT has worked 40% of the time at his polling place. Clay, who has been blind since the age of 2, makes a concerted effort to vote in person to monitor how accessible the polls are for those who are blind. People with disabilities are “full-fledged members of our community.”
Detroiters who successfully used VATs on Tuesday left their polling locations relieved and excited but wondered what future elections would hold and what was happening at other precincts.
“When it’s time to vote again, will the machine work? That’s the only thing going through my head. We made it through this time, but what’s going to happen next time, because every time it’s a different process,” said Darryl Rice.
A 2025 audit of 415 polling locations across 7 counties by Detroit Disability Power found that 10% met accessibility standards. Thirty-six percent were found to have fully functional VATs, down from 62% the year before.
“Many of the sites that are inaccessible need capital improvements to get a ramp or get an elevator or have automatic doors or get a repaved parking lot — those are all things that are expensive, and that really could require state legislative action to address,” said Dessa Cosma, executive director of Detroit Disability Power.
But many issues are “no cost, game decisions” that are easily solvable, including not using a barrel to prop a door open, having better signage, ensuring the wheelchair height voting booth is set up and that the VAT is turned on and the person in charge of it knows how to use it, Cosma said.
Polling places and early voting sites are required to have a VAT, which includes such features as audio ballots for those who are blind and large print displays.
The Detroit Department of Elections told BridgeDetroit in late September that there are VATs at all of the city’s 158 polling locations and additional machines in reserve. The department said complaints about VATS are not made often, but when they are, a team is dispatched. The elections office said a specialist trained on how to operate the VATs by the elections department staff is stationed at each polling spot.
Marguerite Maddox voted with the assistance of Kaci Pellar, her trusted friend at the Walker Williams Rec Center on Election Day (Credit: Bryce Huffman, BridgeDetroit)
Detroiter Marguerite Maddox said she was “very anxious” because she wasn’t sure how many voters would come out to the polls. She’d been stuck in line for a while, but once she got to the VAT, the process was smooth, she said.
“Between A ,B and C, I’d give the VAT machines a B today,” said Maddox, who uses a walker and has a service dog. Maddox voted with the assistance of Kaci Pellar, her trusted friend at the Walker Williams Rec Center.
Maddox, who has cerebral palsy, is a regular fixture at council meetings and a disability justice advocate. It took between 30 to 40 minutes to fill out her ballot, she said, whereas in some previous elections it would take her up to 3 hours. She’d like to see more precinct tables at polling places to make the lines shorter for everyone.
On Tuesday, Stephen Handschu was also able to successfully cast his ballot using a VAT at Central United Methodist Church.
“We are no different than the rest of the population in valuing that kind of repeated neighborhood personal human contact,” Handschu previously told BridgeDetroit. “There’s something very powerful, I think, about making it to the polling place with other voters. It’s one of the few times that you’re putting your little hand on a very big oar and trying to pull it in a certain direction.”
Stephen Handschu, an artist and representative of Detroit Advocated of the Blind, voted using a VAT at Central United Methodist Church on Election Day. (Credit: Bryce Huffman, BridgeDetroit)
Handschu, an artist and representative for Detroit Advocates of the Blind, had stopped voting in person because the VAT didn’t work. One year, there were no headphones. There were times when the machines just didn’t turn on, he said. He begrudgingly voted absentee.
He intended to vote in person, partly because he wanted to see if the system would work as it should and partly because he wanted to cast his ballot alongside his neighbors. The ballot was long and using the machine was cumbersome, he said. The process took him nearly two hours, but he was happy the machine worked this time.
“No one should take for granted the right to vote to begin with, and the right to vote secretly,” said Handschu. “Those are pretty important rights of citizenship. And what can I say? I wish we didn’t have to fuss so long to get here, but I’m delighted we got here. And at least today for me, the system did work.”
BridgeDetroit’s Bryce Huffman and Christine Ferretti contributed to this report.
