City accessibility coordinator recommends digital surveys, flags accessibility problems at North Showers polling site

Michael Shermas, special projects coordinator and human rights liaison for the city of Bloomington, told the Monroe County Election Board on a September meeting that the Bloomington–Monroe County Community Accessibility program has used new software to survey polling sites and recommended the county consider purchasing similar software for polling‑site accessibility work.

Shermas showed the board a recent survey of North Showers — the site the county plans to use for early voting — and said the digital tool, BlueDAG, permits trained volunteer surveyors to record barriers on tablets or smartphones and produce reports that pair photographic evidence with specific ADA citations, diagrams and suggested mitigations.

The report Shermas handed board members lists parking‑lot issues and other barriers and, he said, indicates “about 12 things” that would need mitigation before the site is used for early voting. Shermas described the approach as “functional accessibility” — focusing on how people who use wheelchairs or who are blind can get into and use a site — and said the tool makes it easier to show why a feature does or does not meet the rule.

Shermas said the BlueDAG vendor quotes varied: an initial quote of roughly $36,000 for a three‑year contract was reduced in negotiations; he said the county might realistically expect something in the $12,000 to $20,000 per‑year range or a one‑year option priced nearer $12,000 when negotiating for election use. He told the board the city’s volunteers can be trained to use the software in about an hour and that the city could supply volunteer surveyors if the county purchases and administers the account.

Board members pressed Shermas on ownership and repair responsibility for the North Showers parking lot. Shermas said his report treats the county as responsible for the lot; another participant said the county planning team had placed the lot into a repaving bid and that engineers were completing an engineering packet ahead of an expected bid process. Election staff told the board early voting at North Showers will begin in January and that doing surveys “in the next couple months” would give time to prepare the site.

Shermas recommended recurring surveys rather than a single review because interior and exterior features are often changed by remodels or temporary site setups (cones, signage, temporary ramps). He said some barriers are easily mitigated (for example, relocating a soap dispenser), while others — such as repaving and restriping parking or correcting a discontinuous handrail — require standard construction work and may be scheduled farther out.

Shermas also noted that a version of BlueDAG can be customized to include HAVA‑related guidance for polling sites and produce mitigation suggestions tailored to voting centers. He said the software is already in use for voting‑site surveys in some California jurisdictions.

The board did not make a purchase decision at the meeting but discussed sharing the North Showers report with county building staff and scheduling additional surveys to inform preparations for early voting.