Accessibility for Voters with Disabilities. Emma O Neill-Dietel and Jenny Chan

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1 Accessibility for Voters with Disabilities Emma O Neill-Dietel and Jenny Chan

2 Overview While we were walking around Ward 53, we noticed that almost all of the polling places were near impossible for people with disabilities to get to. There are many other wards that don t have a single fully accessible polling place in Philadelphia. We thought about it, and realized that there are many other facets of the voting process that could be made more easily accessible to voters with disabilities.

3 The Current Issues Many polling places are not fully accessible. People who require more accommodations than are offered can either acquire an alternate ballot or cast an emergency vote at City hall. Securing an absentee ballot involves wading through jargon that is too complicated for most people to easily understand. Absentee ballots or voting at City Hall both take many extra steps that most voters without disabilities do not have to go through, such as sending out a request by a deadline, getting approved, returning the ballot by mail, and in the case of City Hall, coming in from what might be a miles-away home to wait untold hours to cast a ballot. Voters with disabilities aren t outright denied accommodations or the right to vote, but the many layers of the voting process for voters with disabilities are far too complicated.

4 Our Proposal: Part 1 There is a lot of complexity involved in voting no matter who you are. Registration, voter ID, absentee ballots, etc. For voters with disabilities, the process is much more complicated, so it should be simplified as much as possible. It took us a lot of searching to finally come up with a website that clearly and concisely explains the voting process for voters with disabilities whose wards have no accessible polling places. This website, votespa.com, should serve as a model for all other websites with voting information, such as philadelphiavotes.com and www. fvap.gov.

5 Ideal Website Format What about this makes it such a good resource for voters? It is written in terms that are easy to understand It lays out the rights that voters with disabilities are entitled to It is concise and to the point It has links to places with more indepth information pt/community/residents_with_unique_voting_needs/14311/hide_-_citizen_with_a_disability_- _vpa/

6 Other websites that give information about voting accessibilities and accommodations should be encouraged to adopt a more easyto-read format that takes people exactly where they need to go without wading through unnecessary and confusing jargon. Voting accommodations don t begin and end at the polling place. All websites that give information about voting should make it as easy as possible for readers to access them. One way that websites could be made more accessible not just for people with disabilities, but for everyone, is to put information up-front and state it in a way that most people can understand.

7 This is an example of how these annotations would work on a passage from philadelphiavotes.com, which is linked on the Committee of 70 website: A comprehensive list of criteria can be found by clicking here. An alternative ballot is similar to an absentee ballot. It is a paper ballot that can be used instead of a polling place and sent in paper form to be counted just like any other vote. When a reader clicks on the bolded words, a short definition comes up, along with any other helpful links. These annotations would be coded so that they are easy to enlarge for readers with visual limitations and would function in sync with readaloud technology for readers with other visual or comprehensive needs.

8 Our Proposal: Part 2 Absentee ballots are fine, but accessibility is about having the same opportunities as ablebodied people, which includes a physical polling place. There are whole wards without a single fully accessible polling place. More efforts must be made to find polling places that fit all of the criteria. Schools and other public places are required to be accessible by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Polling places use absentee ballots as a loophole when they should make as much effort as other public places are required to. ALL polling places should be accessible. There is a significant handful that aren't (including each of our neighborhood polling places) but there are plenty of polling places that are fully accessible. If the polling places can t be moved, the current places should be equipped with everything necessary to be fully accessible.

9 Our Proposal: Part 3 Along with making the information on the website simpler to understand, it is important to let voters know that there are options other than voting at a polling place if the one they are assigned to is not accessible. In order to read on websites about the many ways they can participate in elections, voters need to know where to look for this information. This information can be conveyed in advertisements and posters. These posters can also inform voters with disabilities of their rights to accessibility.

10 Examples of how this information could be advertised: Posters Online advertisements Advertisements in public transportation

11 Our Proposal: Part 4 More and more, sending documents by mail is becoming a tedious task. Many facets of voting are slowly digitizing, such as the fact that voters can register online now. The next step should be absentee ballots and alternative ballots. Right now it is required that the ballots are requested, then sent by mail to the voter, then sent back by mail by a certain deadline. It is so easy for papers like this to get lost in the shuffle, no matter how important they are. Once again, it should be as simple as possible for voters who are not voting the traditional way to vote anyway. They are going out of their way to vote as it is. It should not be made any harder for them than it needs to be.

12 In conclusion, voting is a basic right that all people, regardless of their abilities, should be able to exercise, and all people should know how they can access that right.

13 Sources "About Absentee Voting." FVAP.gov. Federal Voting Assistance Program, n.d. Web. 6 May Accessibility Criteria. Department of State. Pennsylvania Department of State, n.d. Web. 5 May "Citizen with a Disability." VotesPA. Pa.gov, n.d. Web. 6 May "Polling Place Accessibility." Offıcıal Websıte of the Phıladelphıa Cıty Commıssıoners. Philadelphia City Commissioners, n.d. Web. 5 May Resources for Voters with Disabilities. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) Website. Election Assistance Commission, n.d. Web. 6 May Voting Accessibility. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) Website. Election Assistance Commission, n.d. Web. 6 May 2016.