Getting Out the (Disabled) Vote
October 23, 2008
Social Action
(1 comments)
By Rabbi Lynne Landsberg
(First posted on the RACblog)
Rabbi Lynne Landsberg is the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism's Senior Advisor on Disability Issues. She is a former Associate Director of the RAC and a former regional director of the URJ's Mid-Atlantic Council.
Earlier this month, I blogged about the Americans With Disabilities (ADA) Amendments Act and the work the Jewish Disability Network engaged in to see it passed this year. With one success under our belts, the coalition is now looking ahead to the future: Among our immediate priorities is making sure that the 37 million Americans with disabilities who are eligible to vote get to the polls on Election Day.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was followed by the National Voting Rights Act of 1965, ensuring that Americans of color were not prevented from voting. Although the original ADA guaranteed voting rights to individuals with disabilities, greater effort must be devoted to enforcement of the law.
In reality, many polling places are still inaccessible in various ways. One of the most significant accessibility problems is ill-informed poll workers who do not know how to use the accessible voting machines or are unaware some people with disabilities are allowed to have an aide of their choice accompany them into the booth. I encourage you to check out the disabilities section of the RAC's "Get Out the Vote 2008 Guide," which lists practical suggestions and vital information in helping get out the vote:
- One crucial step is encouraging trustworthy people to check in advance that local polling places are fully accessible to individuals with disabilities. Keep an eye out for elevators, lifts, ramps, disability-accessible parking spots, etc. Where such accessibility aids do not exist, contact your local Board of Elections to address these issues.
- Last month, I encouraged rabbis to appeal for congregants to volunteer to be poll workers. To volunteer, just contact your local election board: Just about every jurisdiction is still short of poll workers for the upcoming election.
- Some synagogues have developed a list of volunteers who will drive people with disabilities and/or seniors to polling places. Now is the time to create such a list; then, by means of emails, fliers and Web sites, publicize that rides are available and detail how they can be ascertained. (Note: Because synagogues are tax exempt, you'll have to refrain from actually discussing politics during the synagogue-sponsored car ride to the polls because, well, it's illegal.)
The number of Americans with disabilities is staggering; an invisible minority. If these Americans turned out to vote, they could have a significant and tremendous impact on each party's agenda for the next presidential administration, as well as on the 111th Congress as a whole.
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I made the National Voter Registration form accessible to the blind and had it tested by the American Foundation for the Blind and they were so impressed with the forms that they sent them to the Secretary of State of West Virginia. Jim Dickson at the AAPD, the American Association of People with Disabilities presented it to the EAC the Elections Assistance Commission but they still refused to make the National Form accessible to the blind.
Everyone is concentrating on election day and voting machines but if you cannot register to vote, then you don't vote. And it is easy to discriminate against a group of people if you deny them the right to register to vote.
I sent the form to all of the states. The State of Washington wrote back that they were not required under the law to make voter registration forms accessible to the blind. Of course they were required to do this 35 years ago and there is no excuse for the abuse of power.
So I contacted the ACLU and they are following up on this in Washington State. They need help with the accessibility law but if you consider that when you deny people the right to vote, then the states are violating the Voting Rights Act and this can entail an enforcement of the 14th Amendment Section 2 upon the states, the reapportionment of electors.
I recommend this action to force the states to Integrate the blind using the Voting Rights Act which is far more comprehensive than ADA. The Blind as a class are actively denied the right to vote by the states and as a class deserve the protection of a 3 judge panel of the DC District Court, the remedy written into the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And if the states realize that a federal judge will not only remove electors but also redistrict the states, then they might have the incentive to Integrate the Blind, not just in governmental offices, but in every sector of society.
Arkansas insisted on the blind being able to draw a map of where they lived on the form and refused the idea of using a form field to ask the blind to describe where they live relative to the local streets. This is of course a sight test, a literacy test. Also all of the government solutions require the blind to gain assistance to fill out their forms which is a poll tax on the blind.
My forms are designed so that if you are blind, you can fill it out in about as much time as anyone else and you do not need assistance to fill them out. They work with JAWS and Window Eyes, Narrator and "Read out Loud". They are PDF files which are accessible to JAWS.
I do not believe the EAC uses JAWS. Which makes you wonder what they spent 1.2 billion dollars to make the vote accessible to the blind, without using the technology the blind use everyday!
And the EAC is violating the Voting Rights Act in its forms, by requiring the citizens of South Carolina to state their race and if they do not do so, the form will not be processed. Also the EAC Spanish language form is not accessible to the blind. I can make forms accessible in all the languages used by JAWS.