$13 Million to go to states for voting access

May 27, 2003 — The U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services has announced the availability of $13 million in grants for states to improve access to voting for individuals with disabilities.

The grants are designed to enable state and local governments to make polling sites accessible and to provide “outreach and education” about the access. Funds can also be used, says HHS, “to train poll workers, elections officials and volunteers on methods to promote access and increase voter participation for individuals with disabilities.”

The funds will be distributed in FY 2003 by HHS’Administration on Developmental Disabilities, part of the Administration for Children and Families. The program is authorized by the Help America Vote Act.

More on the Help America Vote Act and access

EXPERTS:

Kay Schriner and Douglas Kruse have conducted a number of studies about voting access and persons with disabilities.

Kay Schriner, Ph.D., Department of Political Science
University of Arkansas
501-575-6417 (direct)
501-575-3356 (reception)
kays@comp.uark.eduDouglas Kruse, School of Management and Labor Relations
Rutgers University
732-445-5991
dkruse@rci.rutgers.edu

The Trace R&D Center was formed in 1971 to address the communication needs of people who are nonspeaking and have severe disabilities. Its director is Gregg Vanderheiden.
Gregg Vanderheiden
Trace Research and Development Center
(608) 263-2309
info@trace.wisc.edu

Commentary

Voting in America

BY WILLIAM G. STOTHERS

Snow had been falling since early afternoon and it was dark by the time I returned home. The neighborhood glowed in a way I had not yet seen in the few months I had been living here in the first house I had ever purchased. It was the dinner hour but my street was busy. Election day brought out voters intent on casting their ballots before the polls closed.

After checking in at home, I too headed up the street to the polling booth. I was feeling righteously civic, honoring my duties of citizenship, a new homeowner jamming his roots a little deeper into the rapidly approaching winter ground.

But a nagging ominous feeling overtook me as I rolled into the front yard of the house where I was to vote. Lights and voices warmed the indoors with community as I sat in the falling snow at the foot of the front steps in my power wheelchair, wondering how I was going to make my way to complete my civic obligation.

Finally I caught another dedicated citizen headed up the steps and asked her to send out a poll official. In a few minutes, someone appeared, a little chagrined and uncertain. There was no ramp. Could I walk? No. Could they carry me inside? No. Well, they could, they supposed, bring a ballot out to meÉ.

So there I sat in the cold, snow drifting down on me, marking my ballot in the dim light from the house windows and porch. The experience was not one I wished ever to repeat.

I cast that vote a long time ago in Toronto. But the sad truth is that obstacles are still all too common to people with disabilities in Canada — and in the United States.

Shea Hales went to vote in Bryan, Texas a few years ago, but found no accommodations for wheelchair users. Hales was handed a ballot and directed to a table in the midst of other voters coming and going to their private and secure voting booths.

Lolly Liejewski, who is blind, says that when she goes to the polls in St. Paul, Minnesota, she has to have an election judge from each party assist her in voting.

One reads the ballot to her and marks it as the others watch. Usually, she says, the individual reads in a loud voice and repeats her responses so that anyone in earshot will know who she has voted for.

If Ms Liejewski lived in Rhode Island she would have more privacy. Jim Dickson of the National Organization on Disability’s voting project says that Rhode Island will become the first state in the union to offer a secret ballot to voters who are blind or have low vision or print disabilities.

Rhode Island notwithstanding, voters with disabilities will encounter barriers to the ballot across the nation. The National Voter Independence Project found during the 1998 Congressional election that as many as 30 percent of polling places were not accessible. Another 11 percent lacked signs to the accessible entrances.

But many advocates think that number is too low. Just in Philadelphia, for instance, only 42 out 1,681 polling places are said to be accessible.

Perhaps that helps to explain why only 30 percent of disabled citizens voted in the 1996 presidential election, 20 percentage points less than non-disabled individuals.

If people with disabilities had voted at the same rate as non-disabled voters in 1996, five million more votes would have been cast. All together approximately 23.5 million people with disabilities did not vote in 1996. And another 9 million or so are not even registered to vote.

It gets worse. A study by Kay Schriner of the University of Arkansas noted that 44 states disenfranchise some people with disabilities, using such terms as “idiot” and “insane persons.”

Justice For All, a disability advocacy group, says that disabled voters sometimes are harassed, embarrassed or patronized by election officials; face delays in voting because poll workers don’t know where the accessible entrance is located; and are unsure if an official’s recording of their vote is even accurate.

How can we make this better? Removing barrier from the polling places and providing ballots in alternative formats would be a good start. But let’s remember that people with disabilities can be just as disaffected from the political process as anyone else. Add on the problems we expect in trying to get to polls and cast our ballot É well, you get the picture.

But I will be there. My polling place is accessible. And I can safely predict that it won’t snow on me, too. Now that I live — and vote — in Southern California.

 

EXPERTS:

Kay Schriner and Douglas Kruse have conducted a number of studies about voting access and persons with disabilities.

Kay Schriner, Ph.D., Department of Political Science
University of Arkansas
501-575-6417 (direct)
501-575-3356 (reception)
kays@comp.uark.eduDouglas Kruse, School of Management and Labor Relations
Rutgers University
732-445-5991
dkruse@rci.rutgers.edu

The Trace R&D Center was formed in 1971 to address the communication needs of people who are nonspeaking and have severe disabilities. Its director is Gregg Vanderheiden.
Gregg Vanderheiden
Trace Research and Development Center
(608) 263-2309
info@trace.wisc.edu

More Than 20,000 Polling Places Inaccessible

According to a report by the Federal Election Commission, more than 20,000 polling places across the nation fail to meet the minimal requirements of accessibility — depriving people with disabilities of their fundamental right to vote.

Lawsuit filed over DC voting access.

“Millions of Americans are being treated as second class citizens when they attempt to participate in one of the cornerstones of our democracy,” said Cyndi Jones, director of The Center for an Accessible Society.

Inaccessibility can take the form of a polling place without a ramp or elevator.Ê Or inaccessibility can mean that there is no accessible parking, no Braille ballot, inaccessible voting booths, lack of a private vote, or when those who require assistance with voting are judged to be not capable of voting by the very polling officials that should be helping.

More than 30 million Americans with disabilities are of voting age.Ê Yet a National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation study by University of Arkansas researcher Kay Schriner, Ph.D., shows that people with disabilities are 20 percentage points less likely than non-disabled people to vote and 10 percent less likely to register to vote.Ê

“If people with disabilities voted at the same rate as the non-disabled, between 5 and 10 million more votes would be cast in the upcoming presidential election.Ê That is a substantial number,” says Dr. Schriner.

Inaccessibility and discrimination contribute significantly to the lack of voting by people with disabilities.

“Our primary goal this year is to increase the turnout of disabled voters. If we do not seek to actively participate in this fundament right of citizenship, we will be forfeiting our political influence.Ê And it will be through that influence that we will see improvements — you cannot ignore 30 million voters,” says Jones.

 

EXPERTS:

Kay Schriner and Douglas Kruse have conducted a number of studies about voting access and persons with disabilities.

Kay Schriner, Ph.D., Department of Political Science
University of Arkansas
501-575-6417 (direct)
501-575-3356 (reception)
kays@comp.uark.eduDouglas Kruse, School of Management and Labor Relations
Rutgers University
732-445-5991
dkruse@rci.rutgers.edu

The Trace R&D Center was formed in 1971 to address the communication needs of people who are nonspeaking and have severe disabilities. Its director is Gregg Vanderheiden.
Gregg Vanderheiden
Trace Research and Development Center
(608) 263-2309
info@trace.wisc.edu

Disabled voters sue CA officials over vote access

March 8, 2004 — A number of California voters with disabilities, along with state and national disability groups, filed suit today in Los Angeles federal court against California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley and the counties of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and Santa Barbara for violating the rights of voters with disabilities. The suit, filed by the American Association of People With Disabilities, the California Council of the Blind and the California Foundation for Independent Living Centers, along with almost a dozen individuals, challenges Shelley’s November, 2003 directive requiring touchscreen voting machines to include voter verified paper audit trails, and demands that the counties named in the suit have accessible touchscreen voting machines for voters with disabilities for the November, 2004 election.

The plaintiffs claim violations of their voting rights at last week’s state elections and in the upcoming November, 2004 federal elections. According to the suit, Shelley has failed to require accessible voting machines in four of the state’s most populous counties (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and Santa Barbara) and has impeded implementation of accessible voting by imposing restrictions on the only accessible federally approved and state certified voting equipment available — touchscreen, or direct recording electronic (DRE) machines. Plaintiffs say the lack of accessible equipment violates the equal protection provisions of the U.S. Constitution, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

The requirement for a “voter-verified paper ballot” will slow down introduction of accessible touchscreen voting machine, the groups allege.

The American Association of People with Disabilities opposes voter-verified paper ballots, saying the process does not substantially address the issue of election fraud; that it violates the accessibility requirements under the Help America Vote Act; that it will raise the costs of local elections. “With the new voting technology, there really is no excuse for imposing these extra burdens on people with disabilities. Federal law makes clear that this is illegal discrimination. It also denies us our fundamental right to vote,” says AAPD’s Jim Dickson. (Read more about AAPD’s opposition to voter-verified paper ballots at the AAPD website.)

For more information on the suit, contact Vince Wetzel of the California Foundation of Independent Living Centers at (916) 325-1690 David Silver of Silver Public Relations at (213) 488-6161.

Read the press statement and bios of the plaintiffsRead Associated Press story of the suit

On Feb. 20, The U.S. Department of Justice announced the release of new guidance to assist local election officials in ensuring that polling places are accessible to voters with disabilities. Read more from DOJ.

Read “Electronic voting can zap skeptics” concerns,” by Don Campbell in the March 1, 2004 USA Today

Read “Privacy, fraud and access to the right to vote” (Feb. 17, 2004 Accessible Society E-Letter)

People with Disabilities and Voting

What if you wanted to vote but the polling place was locked? For many of the 33.7 million Americans with disabilities of voting age, this situation is all too real. Not because polling officials are deliberately blocking disabled people from entering, but because so many polling places are inaccessible. In fact, the Federal Election Commission reports that, in violation of state and federal laws, more than 20,000 polling places across the nation are inaccessible, depriving people with disabilities of their fundamental right to vote.

This despite state and federal laws – including the Americans With Disabilities Act – which require polling places to accommodate disabled voters.

Data is scarce on the extent of the accessibility problem, but where researchers have looked, the results have not been encouraging. In 1999, the attorney general for the State of New York ran a check of polling places around the state and found many problems. A study of three upstate counties found fewer than 10 percent of polling places fully compliant with state and federal laws.

Polling booths are set in church basements or in upstairs meeting halls where there is no ramp or elevator. Or there is no disabled parking, or doorways are too narrow. All this means problems not just for people who use wheelchairs, but for people using canes or walkers too. And in most states people who are blind don’t have the right to a Braille ballot; they have to bring someone along to vote for them, and might well wonder if that person is really following their instructions. It appears that a person requires sight to have the right to a secret ballot.

Studies show that people with disabilities are interested in government and public affairs and want to participate in the democratic process. But because they are often locked out of the polling booth they stay home on election day. Astudy by researchers Kay Schriner and Douglas Kruseshows that people with disabilities are 20 percentage points less likely than non-disabled people to vote and 10 percent less likely to register to vote.

Poll workers can sometimes deter people from voting when they question the right to vote of someone with a cognitive disability. Sometimes they believe that someone with cerebral palsy is drunk. And just as convicted felons are legally disenfranchised, many states have outmoded constitutions or statutes disenfranchising people with cognitive disabilities, using terms like “idiot” and “unsound mind.” Would it matter if more people with disabilities voted? Of course, it’s the fundamental right of all Americans to vote. But if people with disabilities voted at the same rate as the non-disabled, 10 million more votes would have been cast in the last Presidential election – a major voting bloc.

Voting is power, and measuring the size of any group’s vote can significantly impact that group’s political muscle. But the disability vote is not often examined. As a group, or special interest constituency, people with disabilities are invisible, not included or even identified in exit polling or post election analyses.

Research suggests that disability agencies are not using the National Voter Registration Act.

 

EXPERTS:

Kay Schriner and Douglas Kruse have conducted a number of studies about voting access and persons with disabilities.

Kay Schriner, Ph.D., Department of Political Science
University of Arkansas
501-575-6417 (direct)
501-575-3356 (reception)
kays@comp.uark.eduDouglas Kruse, School of Management and Labor Relations
Rutgers University
732-445-5991
dkruse@rci.rutgers.edu

The Trace R&D Center was founded in 1971. The Center, directed by Gregg Vanderheiden, currently works on ways to make consumer electronic information technologies and telecommunications systems more accessible to people with disabilities.
Gregg Vanderheiden
Trace Research and Development Center
(608) 263-2309
info@trace.wisc.edu

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OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST:
The following sites contain information that may be of interest. Please bear in mind that the information at these sites is not controlled by the Center for An Accessible society. Links to these sites do not imply that the Center supports either the organizations or the views presented.

The Project on Disability Politics at the University of Arkansas looks at political participation of people with disabilities, voting rights laws affecting people with disabilities and disability in American campaigns and elections.“Voters with disabilities face discrimination nationwide,” A report in the November/December 2000 issue of Ragged Edge magazine

The Trace Research & Development Center’s efforts to make electronic voting machines easier to use for the average citizen, our aging population and people with disabilities can be found athttp://trace.wisc.edu/world/kiosks/ez/voting/

The National Organization on Disability’s “Getting Out The Disability Vote” campaign has background and commentaryhttp://www.nod.org/vote2000/vote2000.html