Power Grid Blog
Disability Vote Project
August 15, 2012 | Zach Baldwin
Voting is at the core of political participation—which is one of the main goals of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Voting is how we ensure that our government represents our concerns and how we hold officials accountable for their actions. It is our civic duty to vote and make sure that all citizens have a chance to let their voices be heard. However, 22 years after the ADA passed, many Americans with disabilities still face accessibility barriers when they attempt to vote. In 2009, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report stating that close to 50% of voting places across the country had impediments in the path from the parking lot to the voting area. This report focused primarily on mobility disabilities, but it is important to remember other types of disabilities as well. Blind and low-vision voters, for example, require accommodations at polling places in order to vote and fulfill their civic duty. All people who are eligible voters should be granted the accommodations they need.
Many people with disabilities don't vote at all. The reasons for this are as diverse as the disability community itself: inaccessible polling places, inaccessible voting machines, lack of transportation to polling places, lack of knowledge about alternative ways to vote, voter apathy, and more. If Americans with disabilities are not voting in large numbers, then their interests and needs are not accurately represented. AAPD works to ensure that the needs and interests of people with disabilities are recognized and acted on.
As the nation’s largest disability rights organization, AAPD is committed to breaking down barriers to voting and ensuring that every eligible voter can cast a ballot. AAPD's Disability Vote Project aims to address the fundamental inequalities faced by voters with disabilities. The project works in a nonpartisan approach to ensure full accessibility to all voting places and polling equipment in order to increase the political participation of people with disabilities and people with strong disability interests.
To accomplish this, the Disability Vote Project will address three areas: Data collection, polling and research, and communications. The data collection phase will create a model to help identify people with disabilities, and then apply the data from the model to a national voter file to identify people with disabilities who have a low propensity to vote. The polling and research phase is designed to identify the motivations and attitudes behind electoral participation of people with disabilities. This phase will also determine common barriers to voter participation, probe attitudes about traditional methods to encourage voter participation, and test the effectiveness of messages specifically designed to increase voter turnout among the disability community. The communications phase will incorporate direct mail, online advertising, a new website and tele- town halls, and ID calls. The purpose of this phase is to begin communicating with low-propensity voting members of the disability community in order to educate them about early voting, absentee voting, and voting on Election Day. As we collect more information about preferred voting methods for each individual (previously identified in the data phase), we will begin Get out the Vote (GOTV) efforts based on preferred voting methods.
The Disability Vote Project hopes to identify people with disabilities who have a low propensity to vote, identify the factors that explain why these individuals do not vote, provide education on alternative voting methods such as early vote and the absentee ballot, and ultimately increase the voter turnout of the disability community. Our community represents a powerful force for change. But we cannot enact that change if we do not make our voices heard. We must unite as a community and make our interests known on Election Day. Power up!
Comments
Submitted by Chad at 10:18 AM on March 22, 2013