Access to be part of vote reforms

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Jan. 30, 2001 — Today at 2:15, U.S. Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, and Robert Torricelli (D-NJ), Rules Committee member, are holding a press conference to demonstrate the latest in election and voting technology. Last month the two introduced a bill to reform election procedures and provide grants to states and localities to update their voting systems.

Although the post-election flurry of media attention on voting methods hasn’t routinely noted the problem with access for disabled people, there has been some good coverage, including two pieces by Memphis Commercial-Appeal Washington Bureau columnist James Brosnan. His Nov. 19 column, on the need for better voting systems, noted that “there already are voting machines, mostly designed for the disabled community” that should be examined for broader use. His Jan. 9 column noted that the National Organization on Disability feared “that the needs of the disabled will be left out as communities rush to buy new voting machines.”

In the days before the election, both the Associated Press and The New York Times (“Seeing Eye Democracy,” Nov. 2, athttp://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/02/technology/02VOTE.html (free registration required)) reported on the new eSlate accessible voting machine. The AP quoted the Center’s Bill Stothers on the need for more accessible voting procedures, as well as general access to the polls.

The McConnell-Torricelli bill provides up to $100 million in matching grants per year to states and localities seeking to improve their voting systems in a manner consistent with voluntary recommendations developed by the Commission. Although they will also study accessibility to polling places and recommend voluntary guidelines to increase access to polling places, in fact access to the polls has been a legal requirement for some time, albeit widely ignored. The 1984 Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act requires polling places across the United States to be physically accessible to people with disabilities for federal elections. Where no accessible location is available to serve as a polling place, a political subdivision must provide an alternate means of casting a ballot on the day of the election. This law also requires states to make available registration and voting aids for disabled and elderly voters.

More E-Letters

National Voter Registration Act not being used for people with disabilities, says study

A survey of 196 private non-profit disability agencies has found that over half (54%) are “not attempting to meet the requirements of the National Voter Registration Act,” which calls for agencies to register individuals to vote. The study was funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, as part of a three-year grant called “The Empowerment Project”.

The study also found that

• 69% of agencies do not offer registration at intake.
• 58% of agencies report having registered fewer than 1% of their consumers in the last year.
• 31% of responding agencies have not even heard of the NVRA.

Yet all of the agencies “that were informed of their legal obligation to implement the NVRA by a state agency are attempting to implement NVRA requirements,” says the study’s principal investigator, Kay Schriner. “In this study, this is the best predictor of whether an agency will attempt to implement the NVRA,” she said.

“Further analysis shows that the 2nd best predictor of whether an agency is attempting to implement the NVRA is whether they had heard of the NVRA, from any source. “The most promising strategy for improving NVRA implementation at disability agencies appears to be for state agencies to inform disability agencies that they are required to implement the NVRA provisions. These state agencies could be funding agencies, state election officials, or the Secretary of State.

For more information, contact the study’s principal investigator, Research Fellow Kay Schriner., Ph.D., Fulbright Institute of International Relations, University of Arkansas at 501.575.6417 (direct) or 501.575.2006 (receptionist).

 

Study finds Americans with disabilities more liberal than norm

June 27, 2000 — A new political-attitude survey of people with disabilities has found them to be more liberal than the general population, as might be expected in a group that often accepts government services, but also reveals a strong streak of skepticism about government, says study author John Gastil, a University of Washington assistant professor of speech communication.

The findings were based on telephone surveys of 302 disabled and 1,485 non-disabled people ages 18-64 in New Mexico, a state whose party affiliations and election results closely mirror the nation’s as a whole.

In the surveys, 52 percent of those with disabilities identified themselves as Democrats and 23 percent as Republicans, compared with the general state population surveyed of 43 percent Democrats and 39 percent Republicans.

Social exclusion and acceptance of aid, Gastil said, may push people with disabilities toward liberal and egalitarian views and make them less inclined than the general populace to believe that rugged individualism can guarantee success. When questioned about specific issues, people with disabilities voiced more concern than other New Mexicans about health care. However, the group with disabilities also shared interests with the rest of the populace in issues such as education, crime and drug abuse.

“It overturns the stereotype that people with disabilities would be overwhelmingly focused on health care to the exclusion of other things,” Gastil said.

For the survey, disabilities were defined as physical or mental impairments that substantially limit major life activities such as work, education, mobility, personal care or social interaction. Despite the diversity of experience and types of impairment — from birth, or as a result of disease or accident — a political group portrait emerged.

“A constituency group isn’t effective in the long term,” Gastil said, “unless it is understood.”

Hampering the clout of the disabled, however, is an attitude that was also commonly found among the survey group: that they feel they have little power to bring about political change and that involvement will do little good. The survey found that people with disabilities were, in fact, less likely to be involved in political activities than New Mexicans as a whole.

This attitude could mean there’s room for political growth, Gastil said. If Democrats offer an effective message about rights and services, they could garner stronger support from the millions of Americans with disabilities who follow politics but are uninvolved, he said.

Republicans, meanwhile, might mine the vein of dissatisfaction with government ineffectiveness and red tape revealed in the survey, and offer plans that stress efficiency and accountability.

George W. Bush’s “New Freedom” plan announced in June follows a decade of legislative victories by people with disabilities, especially the landmark 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, said Gastil, but that no substantial study had ever before gauged political opinions of the disabled as a group until political questions were inserted into 1995 surveys by the University of New Mexico’s Institute for Public Policy and state Division of Vocational Rehabilitation.

“A significant increase in the political involvement of people with disabilities,” Gastil writes, “could tip the scales of public opinion and partisan elections.”

Contact Gastil at his office, (206) 543-4655; his home, (206) 525-9766, or atjgastil@u.washington.edu.

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

Study Shows People with Disabilities Less Likely to Vote

l People with disabilities are about 20 percentage points less likely than those without disabilities to vote, and 10 points less likely to be registered to vote, say researchers who conducted a national random-household telephone survey of 1,240 Americans of voting age after the November, 1998 elections.

The lower voter turnout “is not explained by their perceptions of the political system or their perceived ability to participate,” say researchers Kay Schriner of the University of Arkansas and Douglas Kruse of Rutgers University, who conducted the survey.

People with disabilities are more likely than those without disabilities to have encountered, or expect, difficulties in voting at a polling place. Of those voting in the past ten years, 8% of people with disabilities encountered such problems compared to less than 2% of people without disabilities. Among those not voting within the past ten years, 27% of people with disabilities would expect such problems compared to 4% of people without disabilities.

If people with disabilities voted at the same rate as those without disabilities, there would have been 4.6 million additional voters in 1998, raising the overall turnout rate by 2.5 percentage points.

Political parties were less likely to contact people with disabilities in the 1998 campaigns, the survey found.

The survey used the same questions used by the 2000 Census to identify disabled respondents. The sample was stratified so that interviews were conducted with 700 people with disabilities and 540 people without disabilities.

Contact information:Kay Schriner, Ph.D., Department of Political Science
University of Arkansas
501-575-6417 (direct)
501-575-3356 (reception)
kays@comp.uark.edu

Douglas Kruse, School of Management and Labor Relations
Rutgers University
732-445-5991
dkruse@rci.rutgers.edu

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