PARIS – “All over,” Misti Welch said, looking at Betty Larson expectantly.

“Did it say goodbye?” Larson asked.

Welch shook her head no.

“You have to wait until it says goodbye,” Larson explained.

Larson, who works at the Paris town office, was coordinating the polls at the Paris fire station on Election Day. When Welch walked in with her caretaker in the afternoon, Larson asked her if she wanted to try the new machine that helps disabled voters independently cast their ballots.

This is the first time handicapped voters in Maine have been able be use technology that lets them vote in private without the help of a caretaker or poll attendant. The automated machine guides them through the ballot and the voters press buttons that line up with the candidate or issue they want to endorse.

According to the federal Help America Vote Act, every polling place must provide a voting machine for handicapped people, which includes those who are blind, in wheelchairs, or have a hard time reading.

Welch, who has voted before, said she liked the machine.

“They just talked to you,” she said. She recently moved to Paris to live with home providers, one of whom is David Ryerson.

Ryerson said he was driving by the polls Tuesday afternoon when he asked Welch if she wanted to vote.

She said yes. “It’s one of her rights,” he said.

Welch said she has voted in the past with help, and that she reads but must use her glasses. The machine “made it easier” to vote, she said.