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W. Ind. courthouse gets 2nd automatic door

ROCKVILLE, Ind. — A historic western Indiana courthouse that opened its doors in 1882 is finally becoming more accessible to people with disabilities with the addition of its second automatic door.

The Parke County Courthouse in Rockville was recently fitted with the automatic door, which is at the base of a wheelchair ramp on the building’s east side. The Tribune-Star reported Sunday that a $10,000 federal Help America Vote Act grant paid for the door.

The automatic door is the second for the courthouse about 60 miles west of Indianapolis and comes after the first automatic entry was installed two years ago on the building’s west side.

Before those doors were installed, entering the courthouse using a wheelchair ramp involved opening two doors, including a heavy wooden door.

Parke County resident Lee Richardson, whose wife, Jeanne, is on oxygen, said the automatic door is a big help for people with disabilities. The couple used one of the doors last week to enter the courthouse to cast early votes for Tuesday’s primary election.

“It’s a great improvement,” Richardson said. “It’s great they are doing things like this. Especially for people like us who find it hard to navigate.”

Pam Lee, a Parke County voter registration official, said more than 250 people had cast early votes by April 30 and the automatic doors were a valuable improvement for many.

“We have a lot of older people who vote absentee” and vote early, she said.

County election board member Randy Wright, who’s also the county’s historian, said it’s somewhat amazing that Parke County went so long without better access for people with disabilities. Because the courthouse contains the voter registration offices as well as an early voting site, “access to the courthouse is access to voting,” he said.

“This has really made a lot of difference,” he added. “... It’s just something I think we’ve needed for a long time.”

The Help America Vote Act was passed by Congress in 2002 in the wake of the 2000 presidential election, which went undecided for weeks due to voting problems in Florida.

Indiana received more than $1.6 million in HAVA grant funding between 2003 and 2011, according to the Indiana Secretary of State’s office.