From The Advocacy Monitor
November 21, 2017

Over the past two years, the media and the country have taken note of the disability community’s massive political interest and power. In 2016, the #CripTheVote and #RevUp campaigns created spaces for the disability community to rally as a voting bloc. More recently, ADAPT made headlines nationwide for their summer protests of repeal bills for the Affordable Care Act. Now that 2017 and its local and state elections are over, all eyes are looking toward 2018 midterms and how the disability community will impact those elections. However, the bigger question is: what still needs to be fixed before 2018 to ensure that people with disabilities have the same access to the vote as non-disabled voters?

Unfortunately, voting access hasn’t grown as the same rate as recognition of voters with disabilities. Recently, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released their survey of polling places during the 2016 election. This survey found that of the polling places they studied, 60 percent of polling places had barriers outside the polling place that could impede a disabled voter’s access to the vote. Inside, 65 percent of the polling places they surveyed had at least one impediment to casting a ballot for people with disabilities. Despite laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that mandate accessibility for polling places, compliance with these laws and voting access in general still has a long way to go to achieve true accessibility. Sadly, this statistic isn’t surprising, as a study performed at Rutgers University in 2012 found that during the presidential election, over 30 percent of voters with disabilities surveyed encountered at least one difficulty in casting their ballot, while only 8.4 percent of voters without disabilities encountered difficulty. There is still a massive disparity in voting access for people with disabilities.

It is critical for the disability community to take note of these issues and to push for change. One way we can do this is through weighing in on the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines 2.0, a set of guidelines for voting machine manufacturers that prescribe requirements for a machine’s usability, accessibility, and security. In September, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) met for two days to discuss these guidelines. Soon, these guidelines will be made available for public comment. We need the disability community to weigh in on these guidelines, critically analyze them, and let the EAC and NIST know that accessibility of voting machines is just as important as security.

Another way voters with disabilities can promote voting access is to share their story. The EAC wants to hear from voters with disabilities about their voting experience. If you have experienced barriers at the polls, or even if you have not, share your story with listen@eac.gov. These stories help the EAC to better understand barriers to voting for people with disabilities and how to remove those barriers. Success stories are also helpful because they can help to formulate best practices to ensure access for voters with disabilities.

The Bay State Council of the Blind conducted a survey seeking information on the accessibility of voting in the Presidential election last November.  You can review the results of their research here.  Let’s hope this survey gets us even closer to 100% compliance for 2018!

Recommendations

• For a presidential election, six voters reported there was no accessible machine at their polling place. It’s likely the number would be higher for local elections. There needs to be more oversight and vigilance to ensure that all cities and towns are complying with HAVA.
• Approximately 42% of respondents took advantage of early voting, making it a popular option. Only 10% voted by absentee ballot. It’s very important for an accessible machine to be at every polling place that is open for early voting.
• One in ten voters with a disability doesn’t know if their polling place has an accessible terminal. Poll workers need to be more proactive in offering it as an option.
• One-third of poll workers would benefit from more training in the use of the terminal.
• One in ten disabled respondents said their ballot was not private. Confidentiality will be enhanced by thoughtful positioning of the terminal, good repair, and well-trained staff.

Conclusion

With the implementation of HAVA, Massachusetts voters with disabilities have far more privacy and independence than they had ten years ago. Unfortunately, inconsistencies remain. Most users liked the AutoMARK terminal, and most of the difficulties identified in the survey could be easily addressed with maintenance and training. More vigilance is needed to ensure a consistently positive experience for all voters.

Thanks to Disability Policy Consortium for the link.

Florida

Access the Vote – Disability Rights Florida

Texas

Austin Chronicle – REV Up the Vote

Maine

Disability Rights Maine – Voting Access

California

Disability Rights California – Voters with Disabilities

North Carolina

The North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities Promotes REV UP Campaign – Making the DISABILITY VOTE Count

New York

New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, Inc. – User REV Up to Expand Voter Registration

Virginia

Governor Terry McAuliffe – Disability Voter Registration Week 2016

Washington

Proclamation REV Up – Make the Disability Vote Count

Arizona

Arizona Capitol Times – People with disabilities must exercise their right to vote

Read this blog by Andrew Imparato – ED of Association of University Centers on Disability.  Continuing support for the ADA is one reason that people with disabilities have to vote.  We need legislators and government to continue to support the ADA as it was intended!

The ADA and Claiming Disability by Andrew Imparato

Huffington Post – Video on the Disability Vote

The disabled face significant obstacles to voting in America’s political system, Stanford expert finds by Rick Schmitt – From the Stanford News

“People with disabilities are the ticking time bomb of the electorate.”

So says Stanford law researcher Rabia Belt, who has new research on the disenfranchisement of disabled Americans. The intersection of disability and citizenship – in history and in the here-and-now – is, in Belt’s view, part of a great unseen in law and democracy…”

https://news.stanford.edu/2016/05/23/disabled-face-significant-obstacles-voting-americas-political-system-stanford-expert-finds/

The REV UP Forum was held on April 27 in Boston, and hosted by the Disability Law Center.  The Election Assistance Commission heard testimony from our state and local voting officials, as well as testimony from the Disability Community.  In the afternoon, we held a working session of REV UP.

First, the Election Assistance Commission is very interested in understanding the issues of voting for people with disabilities.  Everyone agreed that our state and local officials have worked hard to improve voter access at every level, and have had some major successes (State voters website for example).  And everyone agreed that there is still work to do…  with more training for local officials being high on the list, along with universal access innovation.

Submitted testimony is available on the EAC Public Hearing page.  Voting independently is everyone’s right, but it continues to be a struggle at many polling places.

Second, we heard some great ideas from Ted Jackson (CA Foundation for Independent Living Centers) who has a lot of experience in GOTV campaigns for the LGBTQ community and the Disability community.

While we did not have time to definitively set out a strategy, we hope everyone is on the same page and agrees that as a group, we can increase the number of people with disabilities who vote, and that people with disabilities can become a factor in local, state and national decisions.

Washington Post, March 15, 2016

A while back, someone at a conference told me that intellectually disabled people with guardians could not vote. I believed it and stuffed away thoughts about taking my severely autistic son, Nat, to get registered. It was one more stinging “no” in his life. I should be used to it by now, but I’m not.

Recently, however, I noticed the Twitter hashtag #CripTheVote, which is a rallying call to political candidates to take note of this huge constituency. As a disability rights advocate, I retweeted dutifully. The shadow of sadness for Nat never quite cleared, though, and one day I found myself angry about it: Why couldn’t Nat vote? Who was to say that he couldn’t make such decisions for himself?…read the rest…

Charlie Carr’s Blog from February 22, 2016

As people with disabilities we have an opportunity change the outcome of the upcoming presidential election. Regardless of your party affiliation or candidate of choice, the fact is that collectively, we have strength as a voting bloc. There are approximately 33.7 million Americans with disabilities of voting age and are about 20 percentage points less likely than those without disabilities to vote, and 10 points less likely to be registered to vote.

Quite a bit of this is due to inaccessibility in polling places. Of those voting in the past 10 years about 8% of people with disabilities encountered such problems compared to less than 2% of people without disabilities. But also, much like the general public, there is significant apathy and a disconnect with the political process and those running for office.

That said, we can’t sit this one out! At stake are issues like healthcare, education, climate change, the economy and employment, reproductive rights and on and on. Each of these issues resonates with our community and each is under attack.

Further, perhaps most important, is that the next president will most likely make key appointments to the Supreme Court. Three of the court’s nine justices will be in their 80s and one or two have hinted that they plan to step down soon. The Democrats have the most to lose because if a Republican assumes office, they will have a much easier time moving nominations through the Senate which is controlled by Republicans. President Obama, on the other hand, will face a bruising brawl with whomever he nominates to replace Justice Scalia.

Future justices could potentially face cases on everything from campaign-finance, affirmative-action, abortion and voting rights. In an age of Intersectionality, especially from youth with disabilities, these are our issues too. Issues of social justice that affect everyone.

The upcoming presidential election in November may result in one of the most important presidencies in recent history. Throughout the country there is a growing number of organizations that are aggressively involved in voting registration for people with disabilities such as Texas ADAPT and Massachusetts REV UP because of the importance of our vote and our collective power as a voting bloc to make sure that our issues get addressed.

If you are not registered to vote, register immediately and all of us owe it to ourselves and all those who came before us in the struggle for disability rights to exercise our power. It has come at a tremendous cost.