Guiding the Disabled to the Polls

An effort to include the disabled population in the voting process will reach Orange County this presidential election year.

Unique People, a Los Angeles-based voter registration project, will give the developmentally disabled an election pamphlet in Mission Viejo and is looking for participation from Orange County organizations.

Shawn Casey O’Brien, executive director of Unique People, said voting is something disabled people can do for themselves.

“Able-bodied people can’t do it for us,” he said.

The nonprofit, nonpartisan voters group reaches out to a wide spectrum, from people with physical impairments to the developmentally disabled. Their goal: to help the disabled represent their own interests through the ballot box.

About 2,000 disabled people in California belong to Unique People.

To help guide the developmentally disabled, Unique People creates a polling place to simulate the actual voting environment. The group will be at Saddleback Community Enterprises, a nonprofit job-training center for the developmentally disabled in Mission Viejo, on Oct. 1.

“We think that anyone who can register, who can tell you about their life, has a reason and a right to vote,” said O’Brien.

Bruce Tran, 29, a student who earns the minimum wage assembling medical components at the job-training center, can talk about himself and toss in a long diatribe on politics for good measure.

A registered Republican, Tran said he will vote to reelect President Clinton, in large part because of his support for raising the minimum wage.

He thinks Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole “would make a good vice president because his opinions are different [from Clinton] and it’s good to have different opinions.”

Unique People was started in 1993 and has worked at building a following while aiming for involvement in the 1996 election. O’Brien said money has been coming in slowly--about $14,000 raised since last year--but is starting to pick up.

“We’ve planted a lot of seeds in the past three years and now everyone is started to get excited,” he said.

O’Brien, a disabled person who uses crutches, sees the voting project as a chance to reach a huge, untapped group of potential voters--the 49.8 million United States citizens who are disabled.

“I’m really surprised nobody has done this before in a large, coordinated way,” he said. “If we can get empowered and get some political muscle, we can do some really good things for ourselves.

“We don’t have money or celebrity,” he said. “But we do have numbers.”

To convert the numbers into votes, Unique People has established a toll-free information number--(800) 459-VOTE--and put out an election pamphlet for the disabled.

The booklet describes how the disabled can vote, but also tells them why they should make their voices heard at the ballot box.

“The second half of the booklet is about many of the issues of interest to disabled citizens,” said O’Brien. “We list things like spending cuts that have been made to programs for disabled citizens.”

For the disabled and their advocates, the power to vote can be intoxicating, he said.

“It’s something that the ordinary person takes for granted,” said O’Brien. “But it’s a freedom and a right that strikes a chord deep inside a disabled citizen.”

Advocates for the developmentally disabled at Saddleback Community Enterprises are looking forward to greeting Unique People in October.

“Who else goes out and seeks the vote of developmentally disabled persons?” asked Suzy Elwell, a spokeswoman for the job-training center. “This is very exciting because it’s an outreach to a forgotten part of the voting population.”

“Our whole emphasis is putting our students out where they belong in the community,” she said. “And if you’re out in the community, working and paying taxes, you should be voting.”