Scott Peer has experienced first hand Grant County's lack of accessibility for voters.

That's not surprising, because only four of Grant County's 50 polling locations are accessible to voters with disabilities, a new study has found.

Peer, who is in a wheelchair, had to use another door to get inside his polling location, Allen Elementary School, 1115 E. Bradford St., on Nov. 2. Peer said the doors were not wide enough to get inside the polling location.

He called that an inconvenience.

Once inside to vote, Peer, 27, 622 E. Bond Ave., found that the voting machine was low enough for him to press the buttons to vote but was too high for him to read the ballot. His dad helped him read the names.

"To me, that wasn't very private," he said.

Grant County Clerk Carolyn Mowery said the polling locations must be accessible by Jan. 1, 2006, in time for that year's primary and general elections. There are no elections in Grant County next year.

"I'm kind of surprised," said Mowery, who oversees local elections. "I didn't think it would be that serious. I just didn't think it would be that many."

The Help America Vote Act of 2002, passed by Congress after the presidential election debacle in Florida four years ago, requires all polling locations to be accessible and mandates that polling places offer at least one voting machine that allow voters with disabilities to cast their ballots.

Count Us In, part of the Indiana Governor's Council for People with Disabilities, conducted the study Nov. 2, the last general election in Grant County.

County officials are taking steps to improve accessibility.

The county has $277,886, in a mix of state and federal funds, to purchase voting machines for voters with disabilities.

The machines are equipped with a device that features a voice activation capability for the visually impaired. Voters wear headphones while the machine reads the ballot's text to the voter. The machines also are portable and can be carried to a person in a wheelchair.

Mowery said those machines also will be used by voters who do not have disabilities. There will be at least one machine in every polling location.

The county currently doesn't have ballots in Braille, and Mowery has said visually impaired voters must have someone read them the ballot.

The study did find that the door openings at Peer's poll, Allen Elementary School, were not at least 32 inches wide and accessible parking spaces are not the closest to the building.

Julia Vaughn, project manager of Count Us In, said this county is typical.

For example, when Marion County's polling locations were reviewed in the Nov. 2003 municipal election, 96 percent were found not in compliance. Grant County's percentage is 92, just slightly better. Other counties were either studied Nov. 2 or at last May's primary election.

Vaughn said the state has only $375,000 from the federal government to improve accessibility.

"There's going to be a need for counties to come up with some creative solutions," she said.

The four polling locations that do not have any problems are Brookhaven Wesleyan Church, 2960 E. 38th St., Riverview Elementary School, 513 Buckingham Drive, Kendall Elementary School, 2009 W. Kem Road, and Northwood Manor, 1590 Timberview Drive.

It's not clear yet what measures the county will take to make the remaining 46 polling locations more accessible.

Solving the problem may include having additional precincts at a single polling location if the county can't afford the repairs, according to Mowery

"Some of them may be cheap to fix. Some of them may be costly," Mowery said.

In the past, Mowery said if a voters with disabilities called and did not want to go to their polling location to vote or if they thought it wasn't accessible, the voter would vote in the county's absentee voting office at the courthouse. But absentee voting does not happen on Election Day.

"We have to make sure the polling locations are accessible," Mowery said.

The Governor's Council has provided officials with a booklet of suggestions to make polling locations more accessible.

For example if the problem is that there is not any accessible handicap parking or enough spaces available, the council recommends that officials find a relatively level parking area near the accessible entrance and designate the area for accessible parking spaces and adjacent access aisles. Also, they can use three parking spaces to make two accessible parking spaces with an access aisle.

County officials also have formed an advisory council to help determine polling locations.