Headline : Disability Rights Are Voting Rights

Read more from the original article on here at www.fordfoundation.org.

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When Detroit Disability Power volunteers audited the city’s polling places for accessibility compliance in 2022, they found something troubling. They looked at four categories of accessibility required by law—accessible parking, accessible entrances, wheelchair-height voting booths, and accessible voting machines—and found that only 12% of the city’s polling places offered all four. 

But that percentage doesn’t tell the whole story: Even when polling places had wheelchair-height voting booths, they often weren’t private. And when they had accessible voting machines, staff weren’t always trained in how to use them. When a quick trip to the polls becomes a 45-minute back-and-forth between staff members figuring out which buttons to press and cords to plug in, many disabled voters may decide that voting is simply not worth the hassle.

This isn’t just a Detroit issue, and this isn’t just a “disability issue.” This is a democracy issue. And it’s happening across the country.

For too long, we’ve seen issues of accessibility sidelined in voting-rights advocacy, or, worse, used in bad faith to shut down polling places that are already too few and far between. 

Read more from the original article on here at www.fordfoundation.org.

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