[BlindTlk] Blind advocate Armando Vias reflects on accessibility in voting

[Armando Vias]

It was an honor to be on the Houston home journal to discuss my early voting experience.
https://hhjonline.com/blind-advocate-armando-vias-reflects-on-accessibility-in-voting/

Blind advocate Armando Vias reflects on accessibility in voting
Owen Jones/HHJ Staff Writer Jones<https://hhjonline.com/author/owen-jones/>
[Armando Vias]Armando Vias

WARNER ROBINS – Armando Vias<https://hhjonline.com/citizen-wr-lacks-accessibility-for-certain-communities/> is a community advocate who is blind and is advocating for the disabled and blind community.

Lately, Vias has been writing letters to companies to ensure website accessibility.

“I am also still advocating for reliable and affordable public transportation in Houston County,” he said.

Vias voted at the North Houston Sports Complex in Warner Robins on May 1 and said it was quite a ways away from his place of living. He then began having issues with the adaptive voting machine.

“The problem at first was I thought the controller was not working when I tried to turn the volume up or down,” he said.

Vias said they ended up calling over a voting technician to see what the problem was. They then had to get a new controller, so Vias had to wait longer than he wanted.

“While I was waiting, one of the poll workers and I just walked around the track just to pass the time and keep the stress down,” he said.

Still waiting, Vias went to lunch; when he returned, he was told the machine was ready.

“The second time, however, I was trying to vote and it still did not work,” he said. “They came back and realized they made a mistake and must have pressed the wrong setting.”

After correcting this mistake, the machine finally worked and Vias could vote.

After his experience voting, Vias then went to the next Board of Elections meeting and expressed his concerns.

“I wanted to make sure that this doesn’t happen to other people with disabilities who are blind or visually impaired,” he said. “As an advocate, I wanted to make sure that people with disabilities have voting rights so that they can vote privately and independently.”

Vias is still not entirely sure if the Board of Elections can fix these issues for this upcoming election, but is hopeful for change.

“I just wanted to bring this up right now since I don’t want this to happen in a major election in 2024,” he said. “I want people with disabilities to know that advocacy is very important, and if something does not work, you need to advocate for yourself to make sure it works correctly.”

People with disabilities deserving their right to vote is very important to Vias.

“People with disabilities deserve a voice to vote and deserve to make their voice heard,” he said. “If a wrong leader is elected into office, our disability rights are threatened and I don’t want that to happen. We should advocate and keep fighting for our rights for equal access to society.”

Along with advocating for the disabled community, Vias works for Disability Connections in Macon. Their five core services include resource referral, peer support, advocacy, independent living skills training, and transitions for adults and youth.

For more information about Disability Connections visit https://www.disabilityconnections.com/

Thanks for reading The Houston Home Journal — we hope this article added to your day.

For over 150 years, Houston Home Journal has been the newspaper of record for Perry, Warner Robins and Centerville. We're excited to expand our online news coverage, while maintaining our twice-weekly print newspaper.

If you like what you see, please consider becoming a member of The Houston Home Journal. We're all in this together, working for a better Warner Robins, Perry and Centerville, and we appreciate and need your support.

Please join the readers like you who help make community journalism possible by joining The Houston Home Journal. Thank you.

- Brieanna Smith, Houston Home Journal managing editor

Sent from my iPhone