Why it’s now illegal for some voters with disabilities to cast a ballot – By Fabiola Cineas (VOX) / April 28, 2022
The pandemic helped improve accessibility, but new election barriers in states like Wisconsin are rolling back gains for thousands of voters with disabilities.
Thirty years ago, a horseback riding incident left Milwaukee resident Martha Chambers paralyzed from the neck down. Her wheelchair gives her some independence: She drives it using her head and uses assistive devices known as mouth sticks to get other tasks done, like writing or using her laptop.
When it is election season, however, she is unable to get her ballot into a mailbox. She has relied on relatives, a caregiver, or a friend to physically place her ballot in one. Now, under a recent Wisconsin circuit court ruling mandating that only a voter, and not a designee, can submit an absentee ballot, it has effectively become illegal for Chambers to vote.
“Since I have had my disability, I have always voted absentee … because the barriers to get to the voting polls in time can be very difficult for me,” she wrote in testimony used in court and compiled by the federally funded nonprofit Disability Rights Wisconsin.
Testimony from Chambers and other Wisconsin voters describing the painstaking effort they must make to cast a vote in their state helps paint a picture of how new ballot restrictions nationwide are presenting novel challenges for voters with disabilities. A concerted nationwide effort on the part of Republicans, including in Wisconsin, has sought to roll back voting expansions through shortening voting hours, limiting absentee and early voting, limiting dropbox availability, establishing additional voter ID requirements for mail-in voting, and more. All of these measures make it harder for people with disabilities to vote, voting rights activists and experts told Vox, and the efforts are already having an outsize effect.
CONTINUE > https://www.vox.com/23043567/voters-with-disabilities-voting-barriers-restrictive-laws
