From your perspective, how would you describe the overall state of/problem with voting accessibility for people with disabilities? Experts Interviewed Name Title Primary Responsibilities Virginia Atkinson Senior Access and Inclusion Specialist, Program Development and Innovation, International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) Runs disability inclusion team internationally and ensures that democracy and governance programs are inclusive of all people. Michelle Bishop Disability Advocacy Specialist for Voting Rights, National Disability Rights Network (NDRN) Provides training and technical assistance to the Protection & Advocacy (P&A) agencies network regarding voting rights and access for voters with disabilities. Lou Ann Blake Deputy Executive Director, Jernigan Institute National Federation of the Blind (NFB) Manages projects and programs that help to empower blind people to be fully integrated in society, including in matters of voting. Douglas Chapin Director of the Program for Excellence in Election Administration at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota Develops programs in election administration and works with elections officials, academics, and advocates on identifying ways to improve voting accessibility.
Access to elections material and registration material prior to elections “Online voter registration is a huge movement. Six years ago there wasn't a single place where you could register online. We now have 33 states with some form of online voter registration. Most are not accessible.” — Dickson “Probably the biggest barrier to participation is the availability of, or access to, information about how voters with disabilities can cast ballots.” — Chapin “How can you as a voter be informed? A lot of information isn't accessible for people with disabilities.” — Lappin Stigma (including against developmental and psychiatric disabilities) “Stigma. The biggest obstacle is socio-cultural responses to disability. If you can change people’s views on disability, other things will fall into place.” — Davis-Roberts “A consistent overarching problem is stigma. People with disabilities aren't presumed to want or need to participate in political life.” — Atkinson “Guardianship is being used deliberately or unintentionally to discriminate against marginalized communities. … That goes further than elections. If you have systemic barriers they are only going to be heightened in elections.” — Lappin “Your competency to vote can still be challenged based on intellectual disability and mental illness. States are sometimes stripping people’s right to vote based on a guardianship hearing. It’s a whole other set of prejudice.” — Bishop Resources available to election officials “Limited resources are always a problem for state and local governments. New technologies are developed but have to be tested and certified to meet accessibility and security standards required by states. Those new technologies are often slow to come to the market, because of the limited resources the states have to purchase them.” — Reynolds “The electoral process is intensely decentralized, [so] … sometimes the challenge isn't that the responsible official doesn’t know what they need to do, but that they don't have control of the assets they need to make voting accessible.” — Chapin