Do 20 Million Americans with Disabilities have access to polls?

[TWiley]

Below are a couple excerpts from a report posted on Tolerance.org. Tolerance.org is a sister site of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The entire article can be read at: http://www.tolerance.org/news/article_tol.jsp?id=1049

*************************************
Tacitly acknowledging that, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002. HAVA requires every polling place to have at least one accessible voting machine.

"I think most people think the ADA took care of everything, but it hasn't," said Stephen Bennett, president and CEO of the national office of United Cerebral Palsy. "It should have been taken care of, and it's ridiculous we need HAVA at all — and then on top of it, HAVA isn't even being funded or implemented."

HAVA, enacted in 2002 to do what the ADA had failed to do, remains under-funded and largely unimplemented. Only 18% of approved funding has been allocated, and at least 75% of polling places remain unchanged and unimproved since the 2000 presidential election.

The result? The American Association of People with Disabilities indicates at least 20% of polling places are inaccessible to people with disabilities.

*******'Don't block my vote'*********

United Cerebral Palsy and the National Organization on Disability estimate that about 20 million people with disabilities didn't vote in the 2000 presidential election. To put that in perspective, fewer than 550,000 votes separated Bush and Gore that year.

Voter turnout in 2000 stood at 51% nationally. Among people with disabilities, a state-by-state breakdown found voter turnout fell below 50% in 44 states — sometimes much lower. Voter turnout among people with disabilities in Georgia, for example, stood at 30.5%.

*****'The primary right'******

Thomas Paine described voting as "the primary right by which other rights are protected."

*****Things to do.******

:: Find out what polling places must do to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/votingck.htm

:: Download a copy of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights' April 2004 report, Is America Ready to Vote? (PDF, under "Recent Briefings and Papers.") http://www.usccr.gov/

[Virginian]

1. In Fairfax, VA they do.

A voting machine can be moved to a remote table for those unable to stand.
Our old machines (now in the Smithsonian) had a special tilt feature so that they could be lowered for those in wheelchairs.

[realFedUp]

2. two words

absentee ballot.

[ISUGRADIA]

3. Why should the disabled have to get an absentee ballot?

Why shouldn't polling places be brought up to acceptable standards of access for everyone?

[ParanoidPat]

4. It's a BOGUS argument.......

......being floated by Jim Dickson from the AAPD. While it's true that the blind may be able to vote without help using these machines there are many disabled people counted as part of that 20 million figure who will still require help regardless of the technology used. What about people who are both blind and deaf? Quadriplegics? People with little or no motor control of their limbs?

FACT: There have always been, and will continue to be, people who require help in casting their vote! No machine will ever change that.

FACT: The blind and disabled have as much right as everyone else to have their vote cast in as secure a fashion as possible so it may be counted as cast. Audit-ability of each vote cast and verification by the voter at the time their vote is cast is the only way to ensure that. I fail to see how making it easier to cast their ballot on a machine that allows that ballot to be changed at will by someone else without any audit-ability is 'helping' them!

FACT: The disabled are allowed to challenge the rules at the polling places under the existing ADA. HAVA was not needed to help the disabled in the polling places, aggressive enforcement of the ADA was. :)

[TWiley]

6. Bogus?

All forms suppression or coercion involving voters of all races, religious backgrounds, and disability status have been removed?

All of this has been made possible by the civil rights champions of the bush administration?

I do believe that hundreds of thousands of voters in Florida alone would disagree.

snips from your reply

<<<FACT: There have always been, and will continue to be, people who require help in casting their vote! No machine will ever change that.

Is it your plan to remove all wheelchair access where it can be found at the polls? Your argument seems to imply that they are not worth the effort.

<<<FACT: <snip> I fail to see how making it easier to cast their ballot on a machine that allows that ballot to be changed at will by someone else without any audit-ability is 'helping' them!

You are mixing two issues. First, Lets provide the disabled with a legitimate opportunity to vote, and then deal with the issue of vote auditing, which broadly thought of, could include a paper receipt for non-disabled voters.

<<<FACT: The disabled are allowed to challenge the rules at the polling places under the existing ADA. HA VA was not needed to help the disabled in the polling places, aggressive enforcement of the ADA was.

And, the ADA was not aggressively enforced was it. Maybe the "enemy combatants" do not need lawyers either.

I think we both agree that every American, in spite of their disabilities, has the right to vote. I see this issue as being no different than the old days (and currently in FLA?) in the south where the black american vote was suppressed.

The integrity of the vote is the only insurance we have against a dictatorship, and the only peaceful method we have to "toss the bastards out"

[TWiley]

7. They should be.

[Padraig18]

5. In Illinois they do.

No building may be used as a polling place that is not handicapped-accesible.

[TWiley]

8. Now that is good news.

Hopefully, another segment of the population will not be categorically disenfranchised.