Comments on: U.S. Polling Locations Remain Inaccessible

By: thewhatifgirl

thewhatifgirl — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:40:04 +0000

Here in Oklahoma, even the normal voting is not set up for anyone who doesn’t meet a certain form and has no privacy. The “booths” are stands with two crossed dividers that create four spaces on which to fill out the ballot, but the stand itself is very tall (at 5’1″, it is basically up to my armpits when I’m standing). There is no screen to block others’ view, and my voting place in the last election was so crowded, there were people bumping into me. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for disabled people. And yet my legislators are too busy trying to basically ban abortion to care…

By: Amanda in the South Bay

Amanda in the South Bay — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:35:27 +0000

William-
If you are concerned about USPS fraud, then shouldn’t you logically also ban absentee balloting? How many credible accusations of ballot tampering by USPS employees has there been in any jurisdiction?

BTW, the number of registered absentee voters in CA as of 20 OCT 08 was greater than the entire population of the state of Oregon, and as of yet I have heard of no accusations of USPS fraud in either state.

http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/sov/2008_general/sov_complete.pdf

By: Kay Olson

Kay Olson — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:10:48 +0000

Voting by mail is certainly valuable as one option, but if it’s the only choice what happens to the quad that physically needs someone else to fill out the ballot and get it in the mail? What if all her helpers have political views contrary to hers? How can she be sure her ballot as she wishes it filled out gets counted?

Being able to get in a polling place and have as many mechanisms as possible available for privacy (or trained poll workers who are supposed to be at the service of the democratic process) helps ensure that people with disabilities have their votes counted.

By: William

William — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:23:33 +0000

This probably has a lot to do with where I live/grew-up, but voting by mail seems problematic. I generally only use USPS if I have absolutely no other choice, and even then I suck it up and fork over the extra cash for certified mail because the postal service in my area is so bad I can’t afford to trust it.

My bigger worry, though, would be one of vote tampering. Whats to stop a politically active postal service worker from losing ballots in a given region or neighborhood? What happens when someone vandalizes mail boxes in an area a few days before the election? What happens when the post office inevitably loses ballots due to incompetence? If the ballots are mailed to you, what happens when they don’t show up? What happens if you’re homeless or change your address often?

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:34:19 +0000

Human- For several years our precinct was in a public school’s library but my dad still couldn’t access the room because setting up all the booths and stuff made it too crowded for him to be able to navigate.

Amanda– I understand what you were trying to say, which is why I was careful to say that I didn’t think you intended your comment to be dismissive, but it still was somewhat dismissive. Voting by mail for everyone may be a better way to do things, I guess it works for Oregon and Washington. But it feels like diminishing the problem to say the sense of community in voting isn’t done everywhere anyway. It’s an important issue to people in 48 other states at least. It would be nice to have seen a little bit of acknowledgement on that.

By: Amanda in the South Bay

Amanda in the South Bay — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:58:18 +0000

I certainly didn’t mean to denigrate anyone’s method of voting, or to imply that voting by mail is 100% perfect!

Its just that to someone like me, my age, from Oregon or Washington, has absolutely no concept of any sort of shared community resulting from voting-its just like paying the bills. Obviously issues exist with mail voting-here is a webpage, for example, detailing how to audio vote in Oregon.

http://oregonvotes.org/HAVA/votingguide_audio/faq.html

By: human

human — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:42:17 +0000

Wow. I was going to say, why not just use only schools as polling places because don’t schools have to be accessible? But — after denelian’s comment — I guess not. Wow!

Jennifer, I think Amanda in South Bay was trying to explain that she doesn’t have the option to vote at a physical polling place because everyone in Oregon votes by mail. So, it’s not a choice. But in places where people do vote in person and where that is part of a community activity, of course it’s not good that folks should be excluded.

By: lupe

lupe — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:56:53 +0000

Thanks for this post. Accessibility is so important and so often missing. It’s an interesting exercise to spend a normal day keeping your eyes open for how you would get around doing the things you need to do if you were in a wheelchair. Generally, you you will see the equivalent of many do-not-enter signs. The voting problem isn’t bad here because you can vote by mail, but I’m not surprised it’s bad elsewhere.

By: denelian

denelian — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 06:59:44 +0000

i know that i have *had* to vote absentee, because the polling place i am supposed to go to?
is a PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL, and the voting takes place in the cafeteria, and the ONLY public access to the cafeteria? is half a flight of stairs. this is AFTER going up a FULL flight of stairs to enter the “ground floor”, again with *no* disabled access to enter the building itself; then, within the building, NO access except by stairs.

the school apparently gets away with not being accessable because it’s just *that* old and there isn’t money to put in an elevator (and, school officials told me, no need. there are apparently *no* disabled students who are supposed to go to this school at all. in a city of over a million. huh.)

so… yeah. i have nothing constructive, i guess. except to ask: what the *HELL* are they spending all that money ON?

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:50:45 +0000

I think I shared my story in November when everyone was posting stories about how they experienced voting as a child. My dad had Polio when he was four and never walked again. He went to schools segregated for disabled students (lumping physically and mentally disabled students together, thus giving NONE of them the individualized care they needed). He still deals with all kinds of daily aggravations and, being out with him in the world, I grew up seeing all those aggravations. A big one for him, because of the symbolism involved, was voting.

We never had a precinct where he could access the polls. Some years he would vote absentee but he HATED it. He wanted to be part of that community of voters. One year I remember walking alongside him for a block or more to access a curb cut and then having to go all the way back to where we started just so he could get to the door of a polling place. When I was older he sometimes sent me in to have someone come to his van and take his ballot. Seeing my dad go to all that trouble impressed on me the importance of voting, but it was also so wrong and unnecessary. It’s just one more reminder, one more aggravation, but it’s huge too.

I don’t think Amanda from South Bay meant her comment this way, but just because she prefers her choice to vote by mail doesn’t mean this isn’t an important issue. We value the way we vote for many reasons, and that same ease of voting in person, or the choice (not force) to vote another way, should be easily accessible to EVERYONE.