[NHLakesChapter] **Keene Residents please read** Survey on Road Safety

[andrewjharmon at gmail.com]

Hello

I just got an email from Granite State Independent Living sharing different
issues of interest, one of which is a survey requesting input from Keene
residents regarding planning of roads and other resources.

 

Here's the link:

https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/77c204c8c6924ca3aa43472cf372dca2

 

Here's the article explaining it better:

 

 


 

 




 

Granite State Independent Living

Advocacy Alert

 

 


March 27, 2024

In This Issue

 

*	NH Towns are Lagging on Providing Accessible Voting Machines
*	Ask Congress for Increased Funding for SCI Model Systems
*	Social Security Rethinks its Approach on Overpayments
*	Keene Roadway Safety Action Plan Community Survey

 

 

Granite State Independent Living

Advocacy Program

 

21 Chenell Drive

 Concord, NH 03301

 

Phone: (603) 228-9680 or (800) 826-3700

 

Visit our website at:  <http://www.gsil.org> www.gsil.org

 

E-mail:  <mailto:advocacy at gsil.org> advocacy at gsil.org



NH Towns Are Lagging On Providing Accessible Voting Machines.  This Bill
Could Help

 

(from New Hampshire Bulletin, written by Ethan DeWitt, published 3-26-24):

 

At his town election this month, Andrew Harmon faced a realization: He knew
someone on the ballot. In fact, he'd gone to high school with him. 

 

But for the New Hampton resident, what might have been a common, small-town
occurrence became a minor problem. Harmon, who is legally blind, was not
voting with pen and paper. He was sitting with a town election official in
an enclosed tent, dictating his choices aloud to the official, who was
marking the ballot. And his former classmate was somewhere outside of that
tent, there in the polling place - possibly within earshot. 

 

Embarrassed, Harmon told the official his choice. "When we got to that part
of the ballot, I was like, 'Man, I hope he can't hear me,'" Harmon recalled.

 

In most major New Hampshire elections, Harmon would not be in this
situation. No official would join him in the voting booth, and he would not
need to speak his choices aloud. Instead, Harmon would vote with a digital
device designed for voters with disabilities. He would don a pair of
headphones, listen to a tablet computer read his choices aloud, tap a key on
a keyboard to choose a candidate, listen as his choices were confirmed, and
walk out of the tent with a freshly printed ballot with his choices filled
in.

 

But in local elections, the system is more primitive. 

 

New Hampshire's Secretary of State's Office provides specialized machines to
cities and towns to assist voters with disabilities on Election Day. But
following a longstanding policy, the office provides the machines to polling
places only for federal and state elections. 

 

For local elections, such as town meeting or municipal contests for mayor
and city council, the cities and towns do not have access to the state's
machines. And most cities and towns don't have their own. Voters with
disabilities must either vote with the help of an aide or family member or
vote with the assistance of a moderator or poll worker.

 

Only two New Hampshire municipalities, Concord and Exeter, have accessible
voting machines of their own. Both acquired theirs only after facing legal
challenges from voters with disabilities. 

 

"Manchester had a mayoral election this past fall," said Karen Rosenberg,
the policy director at the New Hampshire Disability Rights Center. "And for
people who couldn't fill in the circles, if they wanted to vote, they'd have
to share with someone who it is that they were voting for."

 

"That is very uncomfortable for someone to have to do," she continued. "And
basically, it's discriminatory because people who don't experience a print
disability and are not blind or visually impaired don't have to share their
private voting information with anybody. They just go and vote."

 

This year, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers is seeking to end the problem
and force cities and towns to acquire the machines - one way or another.

 

House Bill 1264 would require towns and cities to provide accessible voting
systems in local elections that meet the Help America Vote Act of 2002 as
well as the Americans With Disabilities Act. Those machines would need to
have the capacity to accept the choices of the voter and print out a paper
ballot filled in with those choices for the voter to then cast, the bill
states.

 

The bill would effectively "enable access to voting for individuals with
disabilities during elections by giving them the same degree of privacy that
is accorded to nondisabled voters," a summary from the Secretary of State's
Office reads. 

 

Disability rights advocates have long called for either cities and towns to
acquire the machines or for the Secretary of State's Office to share the
ones it already has. That office has said that providing the machines for
local elections is impractical because the tablets in each machine would
need to be individually programmed according to each town's warrant and that
the office does not have the time or resources to do it. 

 

Sponsored by Rep. Mark Paige, an Exeter Democrat, the bill creates a mandate
for towns but does not explicitly state how they might meet that mandate or
acquire the machines. But advocates say they envision two phases. 

 

First, the bill creates a pilot program where the Secretary of State's
Office is required to "provide" the machines to the towns for any elections
between Jan. 1 and June 30 of 2025. Paige and other supporters say that
would likely entail the Secretary of State's Office sharing the machines it
already has and allowing them to be programmed for local elections.

 

Second, Paige and other lawmakers say they will work to set aside money in
the state budget next year to pay for cities and towns to acquire the
machines themselves. Local officials would then use a vendor to program the
machines - without the involvement of the Secretary of State's Office.

 

The bill received a unanimous recommendation from the House Election Law
Committee and passed the full House on a voice vote last week; it heads next
to the Senate. 

 

For municipalities, the threat of litigation is very real. In 2018, the U.S.
Department of Justice began investigating a Concord resident's complaint
that the city had failed to provide accessible voting machines during its
municipal elections. The voter claimed the city was violating Title II of
the ADA, and the federal department, following a program known as ADA Voting
Initiative, pursued the claim. The city came to a settlement agreement in
February 2019 in which the city agreed to acquire the accessible voting
machines, avoiding the potential for costly litigation.

 

A similar situation played out in Exeter, where Jean Shiner, a local
resident, raised concerns about the lack of machines in 2022, according to
the Disability Rights Center. Facing the possibility of litigation, the town
moved to buy machines of its own; they debuted in March 2023. 

 

But in most cities and towns, voters with disabilities are not given the
same accommodations, advocates say.

 

"It's honestly quite baffling to me why it hasn't been available," Harmon
said.

 

Voting rights advocates have pressed the Secretary of State's Office to
change its policies for years. But Secretary of State Dave Scanlan has
followed the policy first established by his predecessor, Bill Gardner, and
maintains that the state does not have the resources to share the machines.

 

In an interview, Scanlan noted that the state is required by federal law to
provide the machines for any election for federal office. That includes
every November general election, every presidential primary, and every
September state primary, which typically features party primaries for the
state's two congressional seats. The state also voluntarily shares the
machines for any special elections when a state legislative seat becomes
vacant. 

 

Coordinating the programming of the machines for those elections is already
difficult, Scanlan said. There is less than two months between the September
primary and the November general election, during which each of the state's
polling locations must return the accessible voting tablets to the Secretary
of State's Office, which must then pass them to a vendor to reprogram them
to reflect the general election ballots.

 

Then, the Secretary of State's Office must test each machine to make sure
the audio instructions for each candidate race are correct and that the
machine will make the right selections when a voter pushes a button. There
are 309 polling stations in the state, and with 400 seats in the House of
Representatives, each ballot is slightly different and must be individually
vetted, Scanlan said.

 

To Scanlan, attempting to fold in every annual town and city election to
that calendar would not be feasible. The only long-term solution, he argues,
is for towns and cities to acquire the machines themselves.

 

"It's a very challenging issue because of the nature of the different types
of local elections," he said. "And . no matter what we do, it's going to
continue to be a work in progress."

 

Under HB 1264, municipalities will not need to do so immediately, Paige
says. He is hoping the transition pilot period, where the Secretary of
State's Office will share its machines, will buy time next year. And he
argued that the town meeting season of 2025 would be an ideal time to try
that approach because there will not be a presidential primary, a state
primary, or a general election to complicate plans.

 

Once the state gets to budget negotiations next year, Paige estimates that
the price tag to acquire machines for every city and town will not exceed
$250,000. Under the likely final agreement, municipalities would be
responsible for paying for a vendor to program those machines for local
elections. The Secretary of State's Office would continue to provide its
separate machines in all other elections.

 

"The hope is that this is really small potatoes in a whole large budget for
a fundamental right of voting," said Paige. "So the hope is this won't be a
heavy lift."

 

To Harmon, any plan to install the machines for local elections is overdue.
For years, he has voted in state and federal elections with the use of
headphones and tablets. And for years, he says, he has asked his town to
also provide them in March. 

 

"I've gotten all sorts of different answers over the years, but they all
boil down to basically: 'It's not something we can do,'" he said.

 

The original text of this article may be read here
<https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2024/03/26/new-hampshire-towns-are-lagging
-on-providing-accessible-voting-machines-this-bill-could-help/> .

 

 

 

Ask Congress for Increased Funding for SCI Model Systems

 

(from the United Spinal Association):

 

Right now, Congressional offices are deciding which funding priorities to
support in the form of what are known as "sign-on letters." These letters,
in support of specific priorities, are led by individual Representatives and
Senators and are circulated to be signed by other members of the House and
Senate.

 

This year, we are fortunate to have sign-on letters in support of the
National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation
Research, which funds the SCI Model Systems program, led by Sen. Bob Casey
(D-PA) in the Senate and Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Debbie Dingell
(D-MI) in the House.

 

Our Congressional champions have set April 1 as the deadline for their
colleagues to add their signatures to these letters. This means that, in the
meantime, our whole community needs to send messages to our Representatives
and Senators to urge them to sign these letters.

 

For over 50 years, the Spinal Cord Injury Model Systems program, sponsored
by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and
Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), has been the centerpiece of a
comprehensive, multidisciplinary system of care, research, and resources for
people with SCI.  The services they provide encompass the entirety of the
rehabilitation process from emergency services at injury through a person's
return to full participation in the community. In addition to comprehensive
care for individuals with SCI, these Model Systems conduct a wide range of
research and provide information to patients, professionals, and the public
both nationally and internationally.

 

Over time, however, federal funding for SCI Model Systems has not kept pace
with the SCI community's needs.  While the SCI community achieved a victory
in 2022 by restoring the capacity of the SCI Model Systems program to
include 18 Model Systems receiving funding as opposed to 14, the average
amount of funding each individual Model System receives has barely changed.
Prior to 2022, this funding had remained stagnant at $6.5 million total
annual funding since 2006.  In restoring the capacity of the SCI Model
Systems program to 18 funded centers, overall funding now stands at $8.5
million, but the amount each SCI Model System receives still stands at
approximately $470,000. The purchasing power of these federal funds has not
kept up with inflation or the approximate 50% growth of the SCI community
since 2000.

 

United Spinal is asking Congress to support increasing funding for SCI Model
Systems in the fiscal year 2025 appropriations bill to $16.8 million;
increase funding for the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center
(NSCISC), which serves as the premier source of spinal cord injury-related
statistical data in the United States to $1.8 million and increase funding
for the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center (MSKTC) to $2.1 million.
The MSKTC works with the NSCISC and the SCI Model Systems on research and on
translating the data collected into useful fact sheets on various topics
related to spinal cord injury that are used not only in the United States
but globally. 

 

Please contact your Members of Congress and ask them to sign the
Congressional sign-on letters for increased funding for NIDILRR for all
three Model Systems: SCI, Traumatic Burn Injury and Burn, led by Sen. Bob
Casey (D-PA) in the Senate and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) in the House of
Representatives, to be included in the fiscal year 2025 Labor-HHS-Education
appropriations bill.

 

Contact Information for NH Members of Congress           

                                                

Senator Maggie Hassan

324 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

Phone: (202) 224-3324

https://www.hassan.senate.gov/contact

https://twitter.com/SenatorHassan

 

Senator Jeanne Shaheen

506 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

Phone: (202) 224-2841

https://www.shaheen.senate.gov/contact/contact-jeanne

https://twitter.com/SenatorShaheen

 

Representative Ann Kuster

320 Cannon House Office Building

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: (202) 225-5206
Fax: (202) 225-2946

http://kuster.house.gov/contact

https://twitter.com/RepAnnieKuster

 

Representative Chris Pappas

323 Cannon HOB

Washington, DC 20515

Phone: (202) 225-5456

https://pappas.house.gov/contact

https://twitter.com/RepChrisPappas

 

 

 

Social Security Rethinks its Approach on Overpayments to Beneficiaries

 

(from Disability Scoop, written by Michelle Diament, published 3-22-24):

 

The Social Security Administration is making major changes amid backlash to
its heavy-handed efforts to claw back billions in overpayments from
beneficiaries including those with disabilities.

 

Social Security Commissioner Martin O'Malley said this week that the agency
will give people more time to pay back money that they mistakenly received
and will make it easier to request that debts be waived.

 

"Despite our best efforts, we sometimes get it wrong and pay beneficiaries
more than they are due, creating an overpayment," O'Malley said. "When that
happens, Congress requires that we make every effort to recover those
overpaid benefits. But doing so without regard to the larger purpose of the
program can result in grave injustices to individuals."

 

The changes at Social Security come after an investigation
<https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/social-security-overpayments-investi
gation/>  by KFF Health News and Cox Media Group television stations
detailed numerous cases where the agency demanded that beneficiaries,
including those with developmental disabilities, repay money that they
shouldn't have received, sometimes in as little as 30 days.

 

Most overpayments involve the Supplemental Security Income program and they
can be the result of a mistake made by the Social Security Administration or
due to failures on the part of beneficiaries to comply with the agency's
complex requirements, the investigation found. In some cases, the
overpayments go unnoticed for years ballooning to tens of thousands of
dollars before Social Security seeks repayment from beneficiaries, many of
whom are just scraping by to begin with.

 

Starting next week, Social Security will halt its practice of withholding
100% of a person's monthly benefits if they fail to respond to a demand for
repayment, instead capping such withholding at 10%, O'Malley said. The
agency will also update its guidance and procedures to shift the burden of
proof away from beneficiaries in determining whether they were at fault for
the overpayment.

 

Meanwhile, O'Malley said Social Security recently adjusted its policy to
approve repayment plans of up to 60 months, two years longer than before.
And, the agency plans to make it "much easier" for beneficiaries to request
a waiver of repayment in cases where they believe they were not at fault or
do not have the ability to repay the money.

 

More broadly, O'Malley, who took the reins at Social Security in December,
said he's working to prevent overpayments from occurring.

 

"We have also embarked upon a deep dive into the extent of the overpayment
problem at Social Security, the root causes of these administrative errors,
and the steps we can take as an agency to address these individual
injustices," O'Malley said.

 

The original text of this article may be read here
<https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2024/03/22/social-security-rethinks-its-app
roach-on-overpayments-to-beneficiaries/30797/> .

 

 

 

Keene Roadway Safety Action Plan Community Survey

 

Are you in the Keene area? A Keene committee is developing a roadway safety
plan and has prepared a survey
<https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/77c204c8c6924ca3aa43472cf372dca2>  to
get as much input as possible.

 

Your responses to the survey's 14 questions will help the City and the
planning consultants better understand key issues for people who drive,
bike, walk, or use a mobility device in Keene. As the Safety Action Plan
evolves over the coming months, results of the survey will inform the team's
recommendations related to proposed infrastructure projects, safety
programs, and project prioritization.

 

The survey, which runs through April, should take 10-15 minutes to complete
and all responses are kept confidential. Note: access to the input maps in
question 10 may not work using some phones and can be more-easily accessed
using a laptop. For additional information about the survey or the planning
effort, please contact the City's project manager Brett Rusnock P.E. at
brusnock at keenenh.gov <mailto:brusnock at keenenh.gov> .

 

If you wish to respond to the survey verbally, please call Keene Public
Works at 603-352-6550 to make the request.

	

 

-

--

 

I will also try to forward the article, but I don't know how well the list
serve will do with it. Please consider taking the survey, and have a great
day all!

 

Sincerely

 

Andrew Harmon

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