[NFBP-Talk] Blind Voters in Pennsylvania Win Court Challenge On Road to Fully Accessible Mail-In Voting and Receive Immediate Relief for June 2 Primary Election

Linda Mackey snowwhite014 at gmail.com
Fri May 29 16:18:32 UTC 2020


Today's *Reading Eagle*.

https://readingeagle-pa.newsmemory.com/?token=nAdA1E4TfTPXOPATw47hzu4kKaQS60zY&product=eEditionEagle


*Mail-in ballots spur fears in Pa.*

ELECTION 2020

Staff and wire reports

Some county and state officials are warning that a flood of mailed-in
ballots in Pennsylvania, fueled by fears of in-person voting during the
coronavirus pandemic, will cause problems in Tuesday’s primary election
that must be fixed before they cause a disaster in November’s presidential
election.

They are warning that there will be no way to produce timely election
results in November unless the law changes to allow counties to process
mailed-in ballots before Election Day. Even in Tuesday’s relatively low
turnout primary election, election night results might be unlikely in
closely contested races, they say.

“No one wants to be in the situation where the U.S. presidential race is
coming down to Pennsylvania and there is a week or two delay on us in
delivering a victor,” said state Rep. Kevin Boyle, D-Philadelphia.

Boyle plans to sponsor legislation to give counties more time to process
the ballots, starting the Saturday before the election.

Boyle, with support from county election directors, pushed for a similar
change in March when lawmakers voted to delay the primary election by five
weeks to June 2. However, it lacked support from Republicans who control
the House and Senate majorities.

Of more immediate concern is the question of whether voters can mail their
ballots back to county election offices in time to be counted in Tuesday’s
primary election. The deadline in state law is 8 p.m. that night.

But some ballots are still in the mail to voters, less than a week before
the primary election. A U.S. Postal Service spokesperson said most
first-class mail is delivered in two to five days, but the Postal Service
recommends that voters mail their ballots at least one week before the
deadline to have them delivered to county election officials.

Montgomery County asked the state Commonwealth Court for an emergency order
Wednesday granting seven additional days for ballots postmarked no later
than Election Day to arrive and be counted. Other efforts to that effect in
lower courts have failed.

Some counties are working to provide alternatives, such as posting drop
boxes in strategic locations, to voters who have not mailed in their
ballots.

Count unclear

  More than 1.8 million voters have requested a mail-in or absentee ballot,
according to state officials. More than 730,000 have been returned, state
figures show.

  Gov. Tom Wolf’s top elections official, Secretary of State Kathy
Boockvar, said her estimate for the number of applications had been “blown
out of the water” and that she at least hoped to work with lawmakers to
change the law before the November election.




Lisa Schaefer, executive director of the County Commissioners Association
of Pennsylvania, said county election directors had been unified in urging
state lawmakers to let them process mailed-in ballots before election day,
even before the pandemic hit.

“We need to adjust our expectations that it’s going to be possible to have
final results in the same manner that we’ve become accustomed to, unless we
change the law for the general and future elections,” she said.

Tuesday is the first election in Pennsylvania in which the option of
no-excuse mail-in ballots are available to voters following a sweeping
election reform law signed in October by Wolf.

Rep. Garth Everett, R- Lycoming, who chairs the House committee that
handles election issues, said the primary election will have to serve as a
test tube of sorts for how counties can handle all the mail-in ballots.

The idea to let counties process mailed-in ballots before Election Day has
run into concerns from Republicans that vote totals would leak out early,
Everett said.

Everyone may need to get used to a longer wait time to get an election
result, Everett said, and any problems in the primary election may solidify
support among Republicans to change the law before November’s presidential
election.

“This is going to be our experiment to see what we may need to fine-tune
for the fall,” Everett said.

Accessibility at issue

Also, the Pennsylvania Department of State announced Thursday that it will
provide accessible write in ballots to voters with disabilities who request
one, in order to allow “blind and low-vision voters to vote privately and
independently in Tuesday’s primary,” according to a press release.

A U.S. District Court judge issued an order on Wednesday mandating that the
department offer an accessible write-in primary ballot for voters with
disabilities who request one, the release said.

The Disability Rights Pennsylvania organization said a lawsuit spurring the
preliminary injunction ”alleges that Pennsylvania violates the Americans
with Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation Act by denying equal access to the
absentee and mail-in ballot process to blind voters. The paper ballots used
by Pennsylvania do not allow blind votes to vote secretly and
independently, like other voters, and instead requires them to rely on
sighted third-parties for assistance.”

Voters with disabilities can use screen reader software to vote at home,
print their voted ballot and return it to their county elections office,
the organization said, adding that “plaintiffs will press for an online
ballot system that is fully accessible to blind voters for use in all
future elections beginning in November 2020.”

On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 12:09 PM Emily Gindlesperger via NFBP-Talk <
nfbp-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:

>
> Morning Linda, could you please let us know what paper? It would be nice
> to find the article online and post it.
>
> Thank you so much
> Emily W Gindlesperger
> skewbdobdo at verizon.net
>
> On Friday, May 29, 2020, Linda Mackey via NFBP-Talk <nfbp-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
>
> This was also mentioned in today's paper. So now more people are aware of
> the situation.
>
> Linda
>
> On Fri, May 29, 2020 at 10:43 AM Lynn Heitz via NFBP-Talk <
> nfbp-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> Thank you
>
>
>
> *From:* NFBP-Talk <nfbp-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> *On Behalf Of *Linda
> Mackey via NFBP-Talk
> *Sent:* Friday, May 29, 2020 10:22 AM
> *To:* NFB of Pennsylvania Talk, state list <nfbp-talk at nfbnet.org>
> *Cc:* Linda Mackey <snowwhite014 at gmail.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [NFBP-Talk] Blind Voters in Pennsylvania Win Court
> Challenge On Road to Fully Accessible Mail-In Voting and Receive Immediate
> Relief for June 2 Primary Election
>
>
>
> Great job!
>
>
>
> Linda
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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-- 
*Linda Mackey*
*609-870-2437*
*Home 610-750-6765*
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