[NFBNJ] Tracey Carcione's Voting Experience Article

[joe ruffalo]

Greetings to all!
Please read and share with others pertaining to the voting experience with 
those with a disability.

Note: “Was Your Accessible Voting Experience Accessible?”

This will be featured as a presentation at the 44th state convention.
I will be forwarding the agenda in the body of an email and also will 
attach.

If you have not registered by the deadline, we extended the date for the no 
cost state convention.
The registration link will be provided when we distribute the agenda.

We continue to make a difference!
Joe

We care. We share. We grow. We make a difference
Joe Ruffalo, President
National Federation of the Blind of New Jersey
973 743 0075
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Voters With Disabilities Challenged During COVID- 19


Casting ballots at home or in person sometimes a difficult decision
by Deborah Schoch, AARP, October 19, 2020



More than 90 minutes into his wait, Doll, 68, blacked out and collapsed. An 
intrepid voter, he recovered and returned to the line in the autumn chill, 
only to fall again. This time, paramedics took him to a hospital where he 
stayed for three days. His doctors would tell him that the episode was 
likely due to his Parkinson's disease.

Doll is one of a record 38.3 million people with disabilities who are 
eligible to vote in this fall's election, almost 20 percent more than in 
2008. They will constitute close to one-sixth of the total electorate, 
according to Rutgers University experts.



Resources for Voters With Disabilities
• The bipartisan U.S. Election Assistance Commission was created as part of 
the 2002 Help America Vote Act. Its website features guidance for voters 
with disabilities.

• Election rules vary widely among states and local districts, so the 
American Association of People with Disabilities offers details.

• The National Disability Rights Network, made up of the nation's largest 
providers of legal advocacy services for those with disabilities, provides 
links to its state offices.

This is also the first general election in the age of COVID-19, which makes 
it more challenging than usual for people with disabilities to vote:

  a.. Electronic voting systems that allow voters with disabilities to cast 
their ballots from home are available only in certain states. Federal law 
requires accessible equipment for voting to be available at polling places 
but not at home.
  b.. Some voters with mobility or sight issues are less likely to accept 
offers of rides to the polls, for fear of contracting the virus.
Because of these concerns, like many Americans balancing the issues 
surrounding the pandemic with their desire to vote, people with disabilities 
are having to decide between going to the polls or turning to absentee or 
mail-in ballots.

Finding the best way to vote
Tracy Carcione, who is blind, tried both those options this year in an 
attempt to find the safest, most accessible way to vote.

Carcione, 59, lives in Teaneck, New Jersey, where the 2020 spring local 
elections were held by mail. She contacted election officials and got an 
online electronic ballot that allowed her to vote safely and privately at 
home.

That ballot, developed by Seattle-based Democracy Live, is being used this 
fall in 20 states, including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Florida, said 
President Bryan Finney.

But New Jersey didn't offer those electronic ballots for its July 
presidential primary, so Carcione went to her local polling place.

"There's supposed to be an accessible machine there, but the poll workers 
don't know how to switch it into accessible mode,” she said. So she had to 
squeeze in the voting booth in between a Republican poll worker and a 
Democratic one who helped her vote, not an ideal system in a pandemic — or 
to preserve privacy.

"All polling locations are required to have accommodations that allow voters 
to vote independently and privately,” said Bridgett King, an expert in 
political participation and an associate professor at Auburn University in 
Alabama.

But a study three years ago found that of 137 polling sites inspected, most 
had voting stations that could impede private voting. For instance, at 
stations not designed for wheelchairs, some voters would have to ask for 
help, thereby potentially allowing others to see how they were voting, 
according to the US. Government Accountability Office report.

Voting in the general election proved easier for Carcione, who used an 
electronic mail-in ballot that she printed out at a United Parcel Service 
office, since she doesn't have a printer.



An issue of trust
The dramatic increase in mail-in ballots — catalyzed by worries about 
COVID-19 — would seem ideal for voters with disabilities.

But some people have to ask for help filling out their ballots and may not 
be able to verify that it was marked and mailed as they wanted, said 
Michelle Bishop, voter access and engagement manager at the National 
Disability Rights Network, a coalition of the nation's largest providers of 
legal advocacy services for those with disabilities.

"No one should have to make that leap of faith when they're voting,” she 
said.

Sarah Trites has already cast an absentee ballot in the Nov. 3 election, 
unhampered by her wheelchair and poor vision

The 54-year-old resident of Sabattus, Maine, regularly turns to her mother, 
who lives nearby, to help fill out her ballots. She trusts her mother to 
record her votes accurately, she said: “She and I are definitely on the same 
wavelength."

Trites cast her first vote for president in 1984 and has voted in every 
presidential election since, and in countless other elections, too.

"I'm passionate about voting,” said Trites, who is active in local political 
and disability groups. Other Maine voters with disabilities share that zeal, 
with more than 65 percent of them voting in November 2018, the highest share 
of any state, researchers found.

"All polling locations are required to have accommodations that allow voters 
to vote independently and privately."

— Bridgett King

West Virginia came in last in 2018, with less than 38 percent of its 
eligible voters with disabilities casting ballots. It also has the highest 
rate of disability — nearly 25 percent — of any state.

The state is largely rural, with winding roads, which can discourage all 
voters, said Regina Desmond, senior advocate at Disability Rights of West 
Virginia.

Her group scored a major victory with the February 2020 signing of a bill 
allowing state voters with physical disabilities to vote using electronic 
absentee ballots.

The first in the state to try the technology was Terra Muncy, 56, of Belle, 
who has rheumatoid arthritis and has used a wheelchair for 18 years. Voting 
in person, she sometimes found low ballot stations that worked well, she 
said.

"But sometimes there wasn't one, which means I was having to reach up, and 
people can see over your head exactly what you're doing,” she said.

During the spring primary election, Muncy was able to cast her ballot using 
the Democracy Live electronic system on her tablet while sitting on her 
front porch.

She recently used the same system for the general election, this time via 
her phone from her kitchen, since it was too cold outside, she said.

To vote in person, some voters with disabilities may have to take buses or 
subways, another challenge. Transit to polling places may be particularly 
taxing for Black and Latino voters with disabilities who may not have access 
to private or public transportation, said King at Auburn University.

Voting curbside
Doll was undeterred by his blackout and hospital stay. He returned to the 
Summit County Board of Elections in Akron when he recovered, this time to 
vote from the comfort of his car.

The board had curbside voting available at the time Doll first tried to 
vote, but it has expanded the parking sites, added signs about the service 
and ordered still more signs, said Lance Reed, the board's director.

Doll commended the board staff for bringing a ballot to his car and helping 
him fill it out, because his hands shook badly, a symptom of Parkinson's. 
Yet even if he can vote electronically from home, he said, he would still 
want to go vote curbside.

"I'm old school,” he said of going to a polling place in person. “This makes 
you feel more normal, rather than handicapped.”

When he finished voting, the staff took the ballot inside to process, he 
said. “Then they came out and gave me an ‘I voted’ sticker."



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