“Help America Vote Act of 2001.” - December 5, 2001

Testimonial of James C. Dickson

Distinguished panelists:

I am Jim Dickson. I am Vice President for Governmental Affairs at the American Association of People with Disabilities. I have worked on elections for over thirty years, ten as a volunteer and twenty as a professional. Currently, I am Chair of the Disability Vote Project, a coalition of 36 national disability-related organizations that worked for over a year to increase the political participation of Americans with disabilities.

The American Association of People with Disabilities is a national membership organization dedicated to promoting the economic and political empowerment of all people with disabilities; educating business and the general public about disability issues; and providing membership benefits, such as financial services and product discounts. AAPD was founded in 1995 by a group of cross-disability leaders to help unite the diverse community of people with disabilities – including their family, friends and supporters -- and be a national voice for change in implementing the goals of the Americans with Disabilities Act—equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency.

Twenty-five national disability organizations are opposed to the passage of HR 3295, The Help America Vote Act (unless you happen to be an American with a disability), as currently drafted. Attached is a letter from the Consortium of Citizens with Disabilities Rights Task Force explaining our opposition to this legislation.

We already have, in federal law, national standards defining access to everything from shopping malls to telephones to buildings. HR 3295 would have fifty different standards defining access to voting systems and polling places. Such a confusion of standards would send the wrong message to industry. The manufacturers of voting systems need one clear set of standard to design and build to. HR 3295 defines people with disabilities as those “having physical disabilities.” This would allow state and local election officials to claim that blindness is a sensory disability, as many already do, thereby being exempt from the legislation. Furthermore, the bill fails to protect people with mental disabilities. The American with Disabilities Act and other federal legislation deal with people with disabilities as a group. Defining disability purely as physical would be a major set back in our nation’s public policy.

In addition, this bill ties the right of persons with disabilities to vote to the ADA and we believe voting should have a higher standard. The ADA allows for local communities to offer “equivalent facilitation.” This is a loophole through which a blind man like me could drive a truck. For seventeen years elections boards have told us to vote by absentee ballot or at the curbside. Americans with disabilities should have the same right to privacy and to vote at the polling place with their fellow citizens. There are federal courts in Michigan and Texas which have ruled that the ADA does not offer blind individuals a right to a secret ballot. As a nation we cannot allow a secret ballot for some but not for all. Again, we have national standards for time, for money, to measure distance and for hundreds of other federal programs. The notion that we should have local standards for voting diminishes the importance of voting and will allow continued discrimination against thirty-five million voters with disabilities.

The Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (“The Access Board”) has been charged with defining access for the Rehabilitation Act, The Telecommunication Act and the American with Disabilities Act.

We believe that the Access Board should be charged with defining access for voters with disabilities.

The nation’s entire disability community wishes to thank Representative Conyers for holding these hearings and for pointing out the need for mandatory national standards.

Over 14 million voters with disabilities cast their vote in the 2000 presidential election. This was an increase of more than 2.7 million from the 1996 election. Unfortunately, more than 21 million voting aged people with disabilities did not cast a ballot. A recent Harris Poll survey commissioned by the National Organization on Disability found that about 41% of people with disabilities voted in the November election. This is up from 31% in the 1996 election, but still far below the national average of about 52% of the public voting. The low voter turnout of people with disabilities is due to a number of causes, but a major piece of the problem is inaccessible polling places and voting systems.

The majority of Americans take for granted their right to privacy at the polling place. According to the U.S. Census more than 10 million voters with disabilities are unable to able to exercise this right because their visual impairment makes it difficult or impossible to see print. These voters cannot cast a secret ballot; they must rely on the courtesy of family members, friends or even sometimes strangers to cast their vote for them. This is completely unacceptable. I am blind. Everyday I walk down the street, catch a bus to go to work, get off at my stop, enter my building, board the elevator, push the button for my floor, enter my office, turn on my computer, download my emails, and begin my day at work. I do this every day, by myself. Millions of people just like me do these very same things, independently. But when I go to my polling place I have to bring my wife or my

ten year-old daughter with me. Someone else has to cast my vote for me. Once, after my wife cast my ballot, she said to me, “Jim I knew that you loved me, but now I know you

trust me because you think I marked your ballot for that idiot.” The point of that anecdote is there is always some level of uncertainty when another person marks your ballot for you. Twice in Massachusetts and once in California, while relying on a poll worker to cast my ballot, the poll worker attempted to change my mind about whom I was voting for. I held firm, but to this day I really do not know if they cast my ballot according to my wishes. Last year’s election in Florida caused many Americans to wonder, for the first time, if their vote was tallied for the person they intended to vote for. I, and millions of other American citizens, ask ourselves this question every time we vote. According to a Harris Interactive survey conducted in December 2000, 95% of Americans with disabilities, compared with 86% of the general public, believe that we have a serious problem with how votes are cast and counted.

We need accurate, effective, and accessible voting systems. These systems already exist. Money cannot be a reason to purchase inaccessible systems and continue the disenfranchisement of the nation’s largest minority. Texas has already led the way. In 1999, the state legislature passed and Governor Bush signed into law, legislation that requires any new voting system purchased to be fully accessible to voters with disabilities and the system must offer a secret and independent ballot to voters who are blind or who have low vision. (The Texas legislation and regulations are available on the web at http://info.sos.state.tx.us) This means computer systems with a simple adaptation that offers speech synthesis so that I, and others like me, can hear the ballot. Another simple adaptation is the use of special switches that allow voters who have arm or hand disabilities and are unable to hold a pen to cast their ballot privately. (See attached list of manufacturers who produce accessible voting systems)

Eighty-four percent of surveyed polling places across the country were found to have a barrier that prevents a person with a disability from voting, and at sixty-seven percent of those same polling places, the barriers completely prevent voters who use wheelchairs from even entering, according to last year’s General Accounting Office (GAO) report.

This means voters who use wheelchairs or other mobility devices across the country are unable to enter their polling places.

The disability community's patience, as we wait for polling places and voting systems to be made accessible, is running thin. There is a growing body of litigation. As the Congress deliberates communities all around the country are rushing to buy inaccessible voting systems. To date, Jacksonville, Florida, Washington, DC, and Philadelphia, PA have all decided to buy inaccessible voting systems ignoring the right of voters with disabilities to cast a secret ballot. All across the nation counties and cities are knowingly denying disabled voters the right to a secret ballot.

For years, election officials have been encourage, by law, but not mandated to, make polling places accessible and they have failed to do so. Seventeen years ago Congress passed legislation encouraging, but not mandating accessible polling places and yet today roughly one-third of all polling places are inaccessible. Only a handful of states make voter information available in accessible formats. Eleven years ago the Federal Election Commission issued voluntary voting system standards addressing recounts, ballot security and other matters. To date thirteen states have failed to adopt these standards and five states adopted these standards only after last November’s election. A voluntary accessibility standard will absolutely ensure that thousands of polling places remain inaccessible and that more than eleven million disenfranchised voters will not be able to cast a secret and verifiable ballot.

In order to allow citizens with disabilities to exercise their franchise with the same freedom and independence as the rest of the population, the American Association of People with disabilities submits the following recommendations.

All polling places must be physically accessible to voters who use wheelchairs and/or have mobility impairments. Legislation must require a collaborative process between the disability community and election officials to inspect every polling place and existing polling places should be made accessible or the polling place should be moved to an accessible location by the deadline of November 2004.

In every polling place there should be at least one polling device that would offer a secret ballot to all voters with disabilities. Any federal funds used for the purchase of new polling equipment must only be used to purchase accessible voting systems that offer a secret ballot, and the polling site the new equipment is placed in must also be 100% physically accessible.

The election community should conduct a coordinated outreach effort through the disability community in order to recruit people with disabilities to be poll workers. The nation must recruit and train competent poll workers. Most election officials report that it is difficult to find people who can volunteer the one or two days a year necessary to be election workers. Seventy percent of people with disabilities are unemployed. It is difficult for most Americans to volunteer a 15 hour work day, if the law mandates 6 or 8 hour shifts, the number of people willing to serve as poll workers will grow significantly.

Poll workers must be educated about disability etiquette in their training sessions. They must learn how to appropriately serve voters with disabilities.

Federal law currently allows the voter to select who will assist her or him in the polls; tens of thousands of voters with disabilities report that this right has been denied – the poll workers insist that they alone should enter the booth along with the disabled voter.

Any materials prepared by election officials to educate the voter on the candidates or voting procedures must be made available in alternative formats, so that people with visual impairments and other disabilities can listen to or read this information.

Compliance with these points needs to be enforceable by an individual or organization’s right to sue and if the individual or organization prevails, they should be entitled to reasonable attorney’s fees.

In addition to these disability specific recommendations, the American Association of People with Disabilities also believes that any effective election reform legislation should mandate the following non-disability specific requirements.

A provisional ballot must be offered to any person who appears at a polling place and is told that she or he is not eligible to vote. The voter should then be promptly notified, in writing, whether or not the ballot was counted and if not, why.

Language minority access must be available; specifically including written ballots and bi-lingual poll workers (the audio ballot for the blind can be easily and inexpensively translated into a foreign language allowing those citizens who may never have been taught to read in their native country to cast a ballot with privacy and without embarrassment).

The Voters Bill of Rights must be prominently displayed in all polling places and be widely distributed before an election.

On behalf of the Disability Vote Project and the American Association of People with Disabilities, I wish to thank you for the opportunity to testify before the House Judiciary Committee.