Voting Rights Drive Opened by the Disabled

The National Organization on Disability began a drive this week to make voting easier for the country’s estimated 20 million disabled voters.

As part of the Disabled Citizens at the Polls campaign, the Washington-based group has compiled a guidance manual for election officials. The 28-page illustrated manual is in response to the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act, passed in 1984 “to promote the fundamental right to vote by improving access for elderly and handicapped individuals to registration and polling places for federal elections.”

That law provided no funds, however, so many of the nation’s 188,600 polling places still have steps, curbs, stairs or other features that make it difficult or impossible for those with mobility, hearing, vision, mental and other impairments to cast their ballots, said Alan A. Reich, president of the National Organization on Disability.

The free manual, made possible through government grants and private donations, contains practical suggestions and guidance for election officials and poll workers. It offers suggestions for making polling sites accessible and suggestions for assisting disabled people at the polling place. It also lists organizations to contact for assistance.

“A lot of the things (in the manual) are common sense items but are issues that need to be addressed,” said Hector Luna, counselor for the San Diego Community Service Center for the Disabled.

In San Diego County, efforts such as installing telecommunication devices for the deaf, voter guides written in Braille for the blind, and curbside voting service, in which a disabled person may drive up, honk and a portable voting booth is brought to the person, are being made to meet the needs of the disabled, according to a county spokesman.

“We want equal access,” said Luna, who has been wheelchair-bound for 20 years because of a gunshot wound. “If I make the effort to get there, I should be able to get in and vote with ease.”