Fwd: [Fwd: FW: Arc and Voting Initiative Targets People with Disabilities]

[Guest guest]

Thought I’d pass this on. Gayle

Arc and Voting Initiative

Targets People with Disabilities

Leaders in The Arc:

Some are predicting that voters with disabilities could

decide the outcome of the presidential election. Here is a good story on Illinois from the Tribune.

Tony

Voting

initiative targets disabled

By Trine Tsouderos

Tribune staff reporter

October 20, 2004

Determined to vote in the primary elections earlier this year, Darrell Price

said he had to climb out of his wheelchair and crawl down a flight of steps to

his polling place in a residential building on the Near South Side.

Price eventually had to tip a regular voting booth down toward him, an awkward

move that leaves him still wondering whether he voted for the right people.

" It was condescending. It was humiliating, " said Price, 37, who has

cerebral palsy. " All I want to do is vote. I shouldn't have to go through

all of this just to vote. "

With another election looming, advocates say such daunting experiences may

become rarer and voters like Price more plentiful if a national campaign aimed

at dramatically increasing voting by the disabled is successful.

Across the U.S., organizations offering services to the disabled are

registering new voters, arranging candidates forums and working to make polling

places accessible--all in the hope of transforming a sizable though largely

invisible voting bloc into one that can't be ignored.

" In the future, you will hear candidates playing as much to disabled

voters as they do to women and soccer moms, " said Ann Ford, executive

director of the Illinois Network of Centers for Independent Living, who is

spearheading the effort in Illinois. " It seems the only way we will impact

people who make those decisions is to have them a little bit afraid of us on

Election Day. "

The potential clout of the disabled is readily apparent in the 2000 census,

which showed that 20 percent of the U.S. population is disabled.

" If you look at those numbers, we could change elections! " said

Tamley, program director of Access Living, a Chicago-based service organization.

" We represent huge portions of the population, but the turnout is less

than other groups, like seniors and organized labor. "

The goal for a loose coalition of 25 organizations working on the issue in Illinois is to get 10,000 new disabled

voters to the polls Nov. 2, Ford said.

" And this is just for openers, " she said.

The national objective is to increase Election Day turnout by 1 million new

disabled voters, said Jim Dickson, vice president of governmental affairs for

the Washington-based American Association of People with Disabilities, which is

coordinating the effort.

" We are trying to develop the nation's largest voting bloc, " Dickson

said.

In Chicago, Access Living contacted 3,000 disabled and

unregistered voters, sending them the materials to do so. Focused on getting

out the vote, the organization held a rally Tuesday.

Chicago-based Equip for Equality, a non-profit group that offers services to

the disabled in Illinois, has trained new election judges in

accessibility issues in Cook County.

Elsewhere, the DuPage Center for Independent Living in Glen Ellyn registered voters and plans to host

a candidates forum on disability issues Wednesday. Downstate, the Springfield Center for Independent Living is working

with election boards to make polling places more accessible. The group is also

helping disabled voters understand the process of absentee voting.

" Nationally ... the disability community is just starting a push in a

really concentrated way, " Tamley said.

And advocates say there is plenty of room for improvement. The disabled are at

least 15 percent less likely to vote, according to a study conducted in 1999

for the Bureau of Economic Research and other organizations.

In 2000 an estimated 42 percent of eligible disabled voters cast ballots in

Illinois, compared with 52.8 percent of all eligible voters, studies show.

One of the biggest problems, experts say, is that polling places tend to be

difficult, even impossible places to navigate for voters in wheelchairs or for

the blind, the deaf and those with other disabilities.

" Even today, 14 years after our wonderful Americans with Disabilities Act,

there still are many polling places that are not accessible, " Ford said.

And some that are, aren't so easy to navigate that a vote can be cast with

relative ease, she said.

Federal and Illinois laws require polling places to be accessible to the

disabled except in emergencies or if a suitable building isn't available.

Despite the law, many polling places still present tough challenges for the

disabled, critics say.

For Ray , a coordinator at the DuPage Center for Independent Living, a

visual impairment means never being able to vote privately. Election judges are

assigned to read aloud the names of candidates and mark off the choices for the

blind.

" Nobody else has to do that, " said. " I have voted for

almost 21 years and I am a little sick and tired of telling somebody how I want

to vote. "

A 2001 Government Accountability Office survey of more than 500 U.S. polling

places during the 2000 general election found that 16 percent were free of

impediments to the disabled.

Over half had barriers but offered disabled voters the option of casting

ballots in their cars. Nearly 30 percent of the polling places had impediments

but didn't provide that option.

" Isn't that inexcusable? " Ford said. " To think that we allow

that to happen to anybody in our society today? If any other minority group

were treated like that, imagine what would happen. The outcry would be

deafening. "

Some money is being spent to improve accessibility to polling places. Illinois

has received about $2.4 million in federal funds for such purposes through the

Help America Vote Act of 2002. Cook County received almost $500,000 in

disability access grants and is surveying all 2,400 precincts to try to find

ways to improve.

" To us, it just absolutely has to happen. I literally pound people about

voting, I put them on a real guilt trip, " Ford said. " If they can't

get in, they are going to get discouraged and they are just going to go

home. "

Of all minority groups, the disabled are among the most victimized, Ford said.

" I think we have come to realize of all the groups, the one that is

farthest left behind is people with disabilities, " she said. " We will

not have a voice until we are players in the political process. "

Copyright © 2004, Chicago

Tribune

Tony auski

Executive Director

The Arc of Illinois

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