[blindlaw] Statement from NCD in Honor of National Voter Registration Day

[Nightingale, Noel]

-----Original Message-----
From: Lawrence Carter-Long for the National Council on Disability [mailto:LCarterLong at NCD.GOV] 
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 1:23 PM
To: NCD-NEWS-L at LIST.NCD.GOV
Subject: [Suspect Bulk Mail] Statement from NCD in Honor of National Voter Registration Day

Statement from NCD in Honor of National Voter Registration Day

The United States Census Bureau reports that the population of Americans with disabilities is now one in five for people between the ages of 18 and 64, totaling 56.7 million or 18.7 percent of our population.

Passed in 2002, the Help America Vote Act was designed to help Americans with disabilities exercise their right to vote “independently and privately” and yet Rutgers University revealed in 2012 that only 15.6 million people with disabilities reported voting in the November 2012 elections.

Nearly 900 people with disabilities were queried by the National Council on Disability for our October 2013 report on the “Experience of Voters with Disabilities in the 2012 Election Cycle.”

Although progress has been made, widespread problems persist. Voters with disabilities are often denied equal access to voting systems because, to a large degree, states and localities have not invested adequate resources, planning, and training to provide reliable, accessible voting technology. Many state and local governments remain non-compliant with federal law through a combination of inadequate funding, planning and training. Architectural barriers persist and even when removed, voting layouts continue to prevent voters from casting their ballots privately. Broken voting machines and election workers who are often unfamiliar with both the equipment and the legal rights of individuals with disabilities perhaps most shockingly, were “condescending or rude or… demonstrate (d) pejorative attitudes towards voters with disabilities…,” the report revealed. 

Furthermore, many states sidestep voting accessibility by emphasizing absentee voting, voting by mail or curbside voting where poll workers actually meet people with disabilities at their vehicle with a ballot. Although the availability of these voting options should not be discouraged outright, neither should they become the only option for people with disabilities simply because physical and other barriers to casting a vote have been ignored, or that laws already passed have not yet been implemented.

Researchers suspect that inaccessible polling places play a major role “both by making voting more difficult and possibly sending the message that people with disabilities are not welcome in the political sphere.”

The constitutional right to vote is an invaluable cornerstone of civic participation in a democracy. So that this treasured principle does not ring hollow for millions of Americans with disabilities – a group that anyone can join at any instant – it is imperative that all levels of government recommit to ensuring our shared moral and legislative goals of full participation. 

On National Voter Registration Day, NCD reasserts our collective belief that every American, including people with disabilities, as well as seniors, people living in poverty, people from diverse racial and ethnic groups and those for whom English is not their native language, should have an equal opportunity to participate in the political process.

With issues including health care, social security and even assisted suicide dominating the news and, at times, the ballot box, we’d we wise to remember, and act on, the words of Justin Dart, “Vote as if your life depended on it…because it does.”

To read NCD’s 2013 report on voting access go to:

https://www.ncd.gov/publications/2013/10242013

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