Hello Organizer’s Forum friends,
Instead of our usual 3rd-Tuesday Organizer’s Forum in December, we invite you to join a call led by the National Council on Disability, about voting! Please forward this announcement to your lists.
Jessica
Call to Action: Has HAVA Helped to Ensure Voting Access for Citizens with Disabilities?
On Monday, December 16 at 1 pm ET, NDLA and the National Council on Disability (NCD) invite you to a briefing on the results of the recent NCD report “Experience of Voters with Disabilities in the 2012 Election Cycle.”
MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1-2 pm Eastern time, 12-1 Central time, 11-12 Mountain time, 10-11 am Pacific time
- Call in number: 1-213-342-3000
- Code: 193134#
CART: The call will have real-time captioning (CART)! The website where you will be able to view the captioning is https://2020captioning.1capapp.com. Username: forum. Password: forum. Thank you to the National Disability Leadership Alliance for sponsoring the captioning of this call.
With the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA) about to release its report before the end of December, and mid-term elections are just around the corner, you won’t want to miss this important briefing on NCD’s report prepared in collaboration with the National Disability Rights Network and EIN SOF Communications, so that the disability community, as a potentially powerful voting constituency, can review our rights, progress, and the work that needs be done along with recommendations for improvement in the 10 years since the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was enacted.
Why participate
On or before December 21st, the PCEA will release its report to the President. We won’t know the results, recommendations or level of disability-inclusion until it is released to the public and the press, but we can start organizing our own disability-media awareness campaigns by detailing the findings of the NCD Report in preparation for increased discussion and debate when the PCEA Report is released.
Background
Voting is the cornerstone of democracy. For too long, citizens with disabilities have been in the shadows in exercising this basic civil right. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA), enacted in 2002, mandated improvements to the electoral process by establishing minimum standards for uniform and nondiscriminatory election technology and administration requirements, including, for the first time, requirements that people with disabilities be able to vote independently and privately. HAVA joins existing voting and disability rights laws to prohibit voter discrimination, suppression, intimidation, and denial of voting access for people with disabilities. Since 2002, HAVA has helped make voting an act of civic participation for people with disabilities; however much work remains to be done.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS! The Organizer’s Forum has a call on the 3rd Tuesday of each month, 1-2 pm EST (10-11 am PST).
NOTE: We have a listserv for discussion on these issues. It’s organizersforum@yahoogroups.com; please go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/organizersforum/ and click “Join this group!” We also have our separate announcement-only listserv to allow everyone to easily get notices about the Organizer’s Forum, called disabilityorganizing@googlegroups.com. Please email us to be added.
We also have a facebook page! We can use this is a way to continue conversation beyond the monthly calls. Please “like” Organizer’s Forum on facebook.
Background
The Organizing Workgroup of the National Disability Leadership Alliance hosts these calls the third Tuesday of every month as a resource for disability organizers, in an effort toward building the organizing capacity of the disability community across the country. They generally follow the format of a Welcome followed by 2-3 experts in a given area speaking for a few minutes on their experiences, advice and challenges. The calls include a 20-30 minute question and answer period.
To ask questions via CART: Sign-in to the Chat function on the right side of the transcript and type your question. One of the call facilitators will read out any questions posted there.
Because we want to maximize the generously donated CART services, we will begin the call promptly at 1pm and end the call promptly at 2pm (eastern time). A few other reminders about call etiquette:
- Say your name before each time you speak
- Speak one at a time
- Speak slowly and as clearly as possible
So you can mark your calendars now, Organizer’s Forums are held on the 3rd Tuesday of every month.
If you have suggestions for call topics or presenters for upcoming topics, please email them to jlehman7@gmail.com or dcoleman@cdrnys.org.
Looking forward to talking with you all!
Date: 12/16/2013
Event: NCD Call on Voting Access
This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
>> Good morning.
>> Is that Tari?
>> Tari: Yes, it’s Tari.
>> Hey Tari, it’s Anne and Clyde and Jessica Lehman, and I think there might be one or two more people on and we were discussing whether to wait a few minutes to others to join which I think we definitely want to do and if you want to take a few minutes to do introductions which I think you were planning on doing.
>> So Tari, did you want me to ask when we start the call did you want me to ask who all is on or do you want me to just introduce the call and turn it over to you?
>> I think it would be great to ask who is on because then it will leave into some organizing afterwards because there’s some organizing to be done whether or not that report contains disability recommendations or not so it would be great to know who’s on the call.
>> By the way, this is Diane. I’m on now.
>> This is Michelle. I’m here as well.
>> Right. And Clyde are you here?
>> I’m here.
>> Excellent, thank you everybody and thank you Diane and Jessica for letting us (audio cutting out)
>> Jessica, are things going to be okay for you to handle your role in this at this point?
>> I’m sorry, I was switching modes so I didn’t hear the question
>> Jessica I was just asking if things are okay. It sounds okay on this end, that your audio is fine
>> Jessica: Oh, good. I’m unfortunately not at my desk though I will be very soon so I don’t know if it’s too loud. I will definitely be in a quieter place in about ten minutes and I figure we want to give people another minute or two to join anyway.
>> Then we hit star seven to switch from conversation moat to Q&A mode?
>> That’s right. I just put us into conversation mode so we can hear everybody.
>> Okay. And then in the Q&A we have to hit star six to un mute, correct?
>> That’s right.
>> Yeah, if you prefer for the dialogue you can go to conversation mode and then you can hear everybody but then you run the risk of somebody forgetting and having some background noise.
>> You run the risk of what?
>> Somebody forgetting that they’re on a conference call and having background noise.
>> Oh, I see. Okay.
>> So when should we all hit star seven?
>> Well, we’re in conversation mode now and after I introduce the call and we (audio cutting out) I will hit star seven to put us in Q&A mode and then you can live it in that mode if you like or you can hit it again to put it in conversation mode if you want to do that.
>> So for those of us who are talking do we have to make any change at all?
>> For the presenters, no.
>> Okay.
>> It’s good to make sure people can hear you when you start talking.
(on stand by)
>> Okay. It sounds like we should probably go ahead and get started. Sound good? So welcome everybody. My name is Jessica Lehman and I am the director of senior and disability action in San Francisco, California and I co chair the Organizer’s Forum with Diane Coleman. Diane, do you want to introduce yourself?
>> Diane: Sure. I am Diane Coleman. I’m a member of the steering committee of the National Disability Leadership Alliance and the CEO of Not Dead Yet.
>> Jessica: Thanks. So the Organizer’s Forum is a project of the National Disability Leadership Alliance. It’s a monthly call designed to expand and support community organizing in the disability community and the disability movement so we usually do a call on the third Tuesday of each month at 10:00 a.m. Pacific or 1:00 p.m. eastern. We’re doing a special call this month that is from NDLA along with the National Council on Disability and the topic is HAVA, the Help America Vote Act helps to ensure voting and (indiscernible) and they’re going to talk about it’s going to be a briefing on the results of a recent report from the National Council on Disability which is on the experience of voters with disabilities in the 2012 election cycle so we’re really glad to have this special topic today.
As far as the Organizer’s Forum there are a few ways for people to get connected and hear about the calls and discuss some of these issues outside of the calls as well. We have a ListServe through Yahoo groups so I would encourage people to join that if you have not already. You can just go straight to Yahoo groups online and search for Organizer’s Forum, all one word, and you’ll see an option that says join and you just have to click that. It’s really easy. If you have any problems you can e mail me, Jessica, and you probably saw my e mail in your notification about this call.
We also have a Facebook page. It’s Organizer’s Forum, two words this time and so if you click like on there to get notified about our calls. I have to admit we don’t always put them on as quickly and as timely as we should but we’re working on that. And we recognize that one call a month is not enough to really get into these issues, today’s issue as well as others so we encourage people to make comments, put questions on the Yahoo ListServe, on Facebook, really help us kind of keep the discussion going beyond today’s call.
Today’s call is captioned. Thank you for thank you to NDLA for sponsoring CART for this call and thank you to our captioner. And Diane Coleman is on the chat website so if you’re on there, if you want to type in questions or comments when we get to that part of the call, she can read them off to make sure that that’s another way to participate.
I do want to ask everyone please don’t put us on hold during this call. We’ve had some problems withhold music and things in the past. You can always hang up and call back. We do have a different system though where we can mute people during the call and then you’ll hit star six to un mute yourself to speak and I think someone will remind of you that later in the call when we get to it.
Let’s see. Two other things. Our next call, kind of back to our regular Organizer’s Forum schedule will be Tuesday, January 21st at the same time so mark your calendars for Tuesday, January 21st. That call is going to be on intersectionality looking at how disability interacts and interacts with race, gender, class and other issues and we can’t get into all the of that in one call but really looking at why is it important to even do that, what do those intersections mean for organizing and mobilizing people with disabilities so that’s kind of an overview call to kick off our year and then really delving into some of those issues later in the year so we hope you’ll join us for that.
Before we jump into the topic let’s get a sense of who is on the call. I usually start with the West Coast but why don’t we start with the East Coast this time. Let’s start with the northeast like New York, Massachusetts any of that area and go ahead and tell us your name and organization.
>> Diane: Well, this is Diane Coleman from Rochester, New York. Am I alone out here?
>> Jessica: Well, let’s expand it to all of the East Coast. Die I think we’re all snowed in up here in the northeast anyway.
>> Michelle Bishop with NDRN in DC.
>> Jessica: Great.
>> Robin Powell with the National Council on Disability.
>> Anne Summers with the National Council on Disability.
>> Jessica: Oh, hi, Anne. All right, moving it sounds like we may not have a lot of people so let’s just open it up if we don’t have everyone talk at once let’s just go ahead wherever you are in the country just go ahead and tell us who you are.
>> Lou Ann Blake with the National Federation of the Blind.
>> Jessica: Anyone else on this call? Okay, well we generally have some people trickle in. I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to our facilitator and presenter for today, Tari Hartman Squire, to introduce the rest of the call. Go ahead, Tari. I’m going to go ahead and switch it into presentation mode before you start.
>> Tari: Okay. Can you hear me? Can everybody hear me?
>> Yes, absolutely.
>> Tari: Okay, great. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate Diane and Jessica having the opportunity to brief folks on this call and hopefully we’ll have the CART transcription for those people who were unable to join us.
As Jessica mentioned, the Natural Council on Disability, which is a independent federal agency that makes policy recommendations to the President, Congress and other federal agencies, commissioned a report that was released October 24th entitled “Experience of Voters with Disabilities in the 2012 Election Cycle” because the right to vote is a unique and critical indicator of citizenship in a democracy and it is designed to take the help America vote act enacted in 2002 which was mandated to improvements in the electoral process by establishing minimum standards for uniform and nondiscriminatory election technology and administration requirements including for the first time requirements that voters with disabilities to be able to vote independently and privately. HAVA joins existing voting rights laws to prohibit voter discrimination.
So this report was done in collaboration with the National Disability Rights Network, whom you’ll meet in a moment, and my company, EIN SOF communications, which is a GSA federal contractor in market research and analysis.
In the development of the questionnaire we launched it at the presidential forum on disability issues on September 28th, 2012 and we sought input from a variety of disability organizations in creating the eight questions that report of the instrument.
So what we’re going to do now is we’re going to structure the call so that Michelle Bishop from NDRN will talk about the findings and Clyde Terry from NCD will talk about our recommendations. Michelle Bishop is a disability advocacy specialist at the National Disability Rights Network in Washington, D.C. Michelle provides training and technical assistance to the nationwide protection and advocacy work regarding voting rights for people with disabilities, coordinating the voting working group and manages voting ListServe. Prior to joining the National Disability Rights Network, Michelle worked at Para Quad Center in St. Louis, Missouri for eight years where she initiated and supervised a team of community organizers. And the last position she held there was tenant director of public policy and advocacy.
At Para Quad Michelle led the Missouri disability vote project, coalition of 30 disability organizations across the state in coordinating voter registration and get out to vote, targeting people with disabilities. She also served on the Missouri Secretary of State standing committee for accessible voting equipment, certification and the HAVA state plan. So she’ll be talking about the findings in the report and then we have Clyde Terry talking about the recommendations. And Clyde is chief executive officer of the (indiscernible) state independent living center in concord, New Hampshire. Previously he was the executive director of the New Hampshire Developmental Disabilities Council and his work has included spearheading a (audio cutting out) on election reform and election accessibility and in that role he co authored Voters Denied Equal Access at the Polls, a status report of the accessibility of polling places in the United States in 2001. He received his bachelor of science from Emerson College and his JD from Franklin Pierce Law Center, now the University of New Hampshire School of Law. So without further adieu I would like to introduce Michelle and Clyde Terry.
>> Michelle: Hi. Can everyone hear me okay?
>> Yes.
>> Michelle: Great. Before we start talking about the major recommendations that came out of the report we wanted to briefly review what the major findings were. This finding surveyed approximately 900 voters with disabilities in numerous states so it gives kind of a clear indication of some of the patterns that we saw happening from state to state all over the country and the recommendations were drawn from that. There were eight major findings that I wanted to talk about quickly so without any further adieu I’ll jump right in.
First and foremost we found that people with disabilities continue to face barriers in exercising their voting rights because of architectural and physical barriers at registrations and polling sites. In fact, close to 40% of the respondents encountered physical barriers. This included inaccessible entry ways, lack of curve cuts, lack of accessible parking that often caused a voter with disabilities to not be able to park or have on to park an inordinate amount of distance away. No accommodations, not even a chair and lack of accessible paths of travel. Secondly voters with disabilities do not always have access to voting systems because states and localities have not invested advocate resources, planning and training to provide reliable and accessible voting technology. Similar to the architectural barriers we found 54% of respondents experienced barriers once they got inside the voting place. A lot of this had to do with the implementation of accessible voting equipment. In some cases the equipment had not been set up or set up incorrectly so it was hard for some voters to reach or not all of the ball ballot was loaded onto the machine. (Audio cutting out) table heights were high and could not be adjusted and a lack of sign language interpreters. 20% of the respondents indicated they were prevented from exercising a private and independent vote in some manner which is obviously one of the primary premises of HAVA. One of the third major findings, voters with disabilities faced discrimination at voter registration and polling sites.
Untrained poll workers were actually identified as a barrier by 25% of the respondents which included an inability to operate the accessibility features of the voting equipment, inappropriate responses to voters who needed assistance, refusing to assist a voter with a disability, not allowing a voter with disability to bring the (indiscernible)or perhaps just being too eager to safety a voter with a disability in effect insisting on helping a voter whether or not your assistance was needed and improperly challenging voters based on their competency, questioning whether or not a person with a disability should evening be vote organize whether or not someone who needs attendance should eventual be voting. People with disabilities have limited access to voter education despite how important it is to understanding the electoral process, your voting rights and feeling prepared and confident to go vote. We found that almost 40% of the surveyed voters received no voter education or training at all prior to the election.
Looking toward some of the larger causes of where these challenge might be coming from, we found that the federal government actually plays very vital role in the (audio cutting out) process in the United States. Ultimately the federal government’s involvement in this process in Help America Vote Act were working. The government accountability office released numbers that in the year 2016% of polling places were without impediments by voters but by 2008 that number had risen to 28% of polling places so we find that things are moving in the right direction. It’s working but the other major finding being that the enforcement role the Department of Justice is critical to compliance with federal statutes by states and by local jurisdictions. There has been great progress but there’s still more to be done. A study by Rutgers in Syracuse found that one third of voters with disabilities reported difficulties in voting in 2012 compared to 8.4% of those without disabilities so we’re still seeing more challenges faced by voters with disabilities than those without so we’ve made progress but there’s still a long way to go. The enactment of voting laws requiring stricter identification at the polls will increase barriers to the voting process (audio cutting out) a number of responses from the voters who were surveyed for the study had concern over getting the proper identification, confusion regarding what would actually be required at the polling place, including voters who had made an attempt to find out in advance what would be required at the polling place and some voters who actually had to cast a provisional ballot because their IDs were considered unacceptable once they got to the polling place for instance an ID that meets all the other standards but does not have the correct address. (Audio cutting out).
15 states in the District of Columbia require a court determination of incompetence or incapacity before removing a person’s rights to vote. 20 states have laws that bar voting solely on the basis of a court determination that a person lacks the capacity to vote in only 11 states placed no disability related restrictions on the right to vote and this has been an ongoing concern as these types of laws directly disenfranchise people from disabilities from participating in the process and we found it also may contribute to challenging the right to vote at the polls on the part of poll workers who feel that people with disabilities may or may not actually have the right to vote and that that’s something that’s called into question.
>> Diane: I’m sorry, I just wanted to request if it’s possible to be a little bit slower. One of the people on captioning is probably getting this through a sign language interpreter so I think we’re okay on time hopefully if that’s possible.
>> Michelle: Sure. And I apologize. I am by birth a very fast talking New Yorker so I try to talk slowly but I rarely succeed.
>> Diane: I can understand that.
>> Michelle: That is actually a review of the major findings that were generated by the report so with that I can actually pass off to Clyde to talk about the recommendations and hopefully he’s a little better at that than I am.
>> Thank you so much, Michelle. Before we go to Clyde I thought it would be helpful, two things, Clyde, if I could interrupt for one second, please. We wanted to let you know we thought it would be important this is Tari to let you know what questions we did ask. They were open ended questions and secondly when you listen to Clyde’s recommendations, be thinking about the fact that in the President’s State of the Union last year he talked about, quote, our most fundamental right of citizens, the right to vote when any Americans are denied that right we are betraying our ideals. And if you recall, he announced the creation of a presidential commission on election administration which was set up and should be should have been making its recommendations by December 31st. Now, Clyde testified and other advocates and citizens with disabilities met with the commission on several occasions and we don’t yet know what recommendations from this report that Clyde is about to speak to or included in that so we do know that the date’s been pushed by from December 21st to sometime in January and we’re getting before the State of the Union so it can be addressed in the State of the Union but there may be a role for organizing of people with disabilities depending on if the commission’s report includes disability and to what level. So that was 1 B, as you’re listening to these recommendations.
The questions that we asked very briefly are eight, they were open ended. If you needed assistance in completing your voter registration, who assisted you? Number two, please describe any physical barriers you encountered at your polling place, for example, no accessible parking, no curb cuts, separate entrance, stairs, narrow doorways, et cetera. Number three, describe any barriers you encountered if any inside your polling place, for example, inaccessible voting machines, attitudes of poll workers, et cetera, that prevented you from voting privately and independently. Number four, if your eligibility to vote was questioned, how did the poll worker handle the situation.
Number five, what if any voter education or training have you received. Six, please describe any difficulty you had voting because of your state’s voter photo ID. Seven, what is your city and state. Eight, how many times have you voted in the past. And then the option for additional comments. So with that we’ll turn it over to Clyde for the recommendations. Thank you, Clyde.
>> Clyde: Sure. I hope I can be heard and I will try not to speak fast while I’m a northern new end glander and we talk fast because it’s cold outside. When one think about the important franchise of voting is really is a concept that’s not disability specific per se and what I mean by that is that every challenge or barrier that a person without a disability may encounter from the registration process to showing up on particulars day or early voting and casting your ballot is only amplified by the fact that an individual may be experiencing a disability so when we think about the voting process we’ve sort of got to think about it from the beginning to the end and to some degree that’s what the questions tried to capture. We’re going to talk a lot about what happened on election day here because that really was the focus of the questionnaire but to begin with persons with disabilities indeed encountered barriers from the outset with inaccessible state facilities. States do sometimes go a long way to make sure that they on election day have an accessible polling place but they fall down when it comes to sort of the registration office itself that might still be an old turn of the century building or something like that.
And so part of our recommendations talk about to state official need to assure that all registration facilities are accessible to persons with disabilities.
Moving on to election day itself, then indeed what the questionnaire found was that while progress has been made that we’ve alluded to, there still are substantial numbers of polling places across the country that are inaccessible to persons with disabilities and here we are ten years after the passage of the Help America Vote Act that provided resources to states and municipalities to make places accessible and they still were not so one of our major recommendations here is to ensure that the resources are spent in a way that assures equal access to all persons with disabilities from parking, path to travel, the major entrance all the way through to the sign in booth and to the booth itself.
Our second or our third major recommendation really turns on the equipment. You’ve already heard that our findings found that most of our respondents could not exercise their right to vote privately and independently for any number of reasons. So again, the Help America Vote Act provided substantial resources to states to purchase equipment yet what we’re finding is that equipment was not necessarily maintained or plugged in properly on election day and so our recommendation again is to have municipalities, use that equipment or upgrade that equipment. With changes in technology reflect what’s real in 2013 and 14. But perhaps one of the larger findings in the need for recommendation is that of training, that indeed that the poll workers themselves were not versed in how to use the equipment, how to turn it on, how to plug it in or how it would work but that’s only part of the story. The other part of the story was the strong need for essentially disability etiquette training of individual poll workers so that persons with disabilities were treated with dignity and respect, just like all other voters and that there were no preconceived notions that simply because a person had a disability, they either lacked the capacity to vote or may or may not need assistance, that the need for poll workers to be trained and basic etiquette to ask a person with a disability if they need assistance.
I mean, those last three are perhaps the key to access and equal access for persons with disabilities. The National Council on Disability in conjunction with doing this report also held a round table discussion with many advocates in Washington and as Tari alluded to, invited the president’s commission to come and listen to the whole gamut of concern to the disability community from persons with cognitive impairments, hearing impairments, folks with mental illness as well as a host of other disabilities so that they right from the get go could realize that this substantial block of voters, individuals with disabilities, would be part of their report. NCD went on to actually hold a hearing in the senate budget chambers last May to solicit additional testimony from experts in the field and consumers on their experience in voting so that that record could be part of this report and forward it on to the President’s commission so that they too could realize how the breadth of the disability community and the breadth of issues facing persons with disabilities.
Our testimony before the President’s commission pretty much focused on those three areas that I alluded to, the need for physical access, the need that the equipment purchased needed to be maintained or updated to reflect the latest in technology to assure the right to vote privately and independently for voters with disabilities, and also the need for adequate training both in terms of how to use the equipment and in terms of disability awareness.
We trust that the President’s report when it is released in January will incorporate the recommendations and ask that the community, the disability community be aware that this is what we want to see and if it’s not there to push to make sure that folks are aware that it’s not there and ask that it get added later on or that it is added that we say thank you but the need for full implementation of those recommendations once it occurred. So that’s a quick summary of our recommendations just to sort of get us to the place of Q&A and thank you. I guess I’ll turn it back to Tari.
>> Tari: Thank you so much, Clyde, that was great. We really appreciate you and Michelle giving us that briefing. Are there any burning questions from anybody out there? Since we do have some time
>> I’m sorry, go ahead.
>> Tari: This is Tari. And when you do ask your question die this is Diane. We seem to be getting an echo.
>> Tari: This is Tari. When you ask your question if you could say your name and your organization, that would be helpful.
>> Tari, this is Anne Summers from NCD. Did we switch over to Q&A mode?
>> Tari: Yes, I think we did. Diane, do folks need to follow the star seven if they are going to be asking a question if they didn’t have the organizer call in number?
>> Diane: I have to confess I’ve not been the one to handle that and I’m not sure. What we could do is test that by asking someone who is not a presenter to speak and if we are not able to hear you, then we know that people who want to speak need to hit star six.
>> This is Anne. I think we heard Lou Ann Blake from NFB earlier. Lou Ann, do you mind saying something just to see if we can hear you. This is Anne again. I have a feeling that means they are still muted.
>> Yeah, Robin Phillips, I know you’re on the call. Thank you for letting me that you’re on. Could you say something and then press star seven to see if that allows you to come through or if you want to send me an e mail if we can’t hear you, we can do this the old fashioned way.
>> In the past it’s always been star six that un mute the line.
>> Oh, okay. Oh, star six instead of star seven. Sorry. Star six to un mute the call. Okay, while we’re figuring out the technology, the person who was asking the question, if you want to send it to me TariS, like Sam, h like harry at mac.com then we can gather your questions and ask them to Clyde and Michelle. Tari at I’m sorry, TARI, S like Sam, H like harry at Mac.com. And then in the meantime if you could hit star six to try and un mute your call, that would be great.
>> Diane: This is Diane. I have a question. I may have missed this in the presentation but did you find that the biggest problems were for people with physical mobility type disabilities or were the higher volume of difficulties coming in from people with sensory disabilities?
>> Clyde, do you want to cover that?
>> Clyde: I thought Michelle was going to start with that one. Well, part of our challenge, of our charge from the senate help committee to do this work was to do sort of a status report, if you will, of the progress of the Help America Vote Act and to that end, you know, the major sections when it comes to disability issues in HAVA was to assure that the polling places were accessible so indeed we had a questionnaire and I think the number was 40% of the individuals still ran into barriers trying to access the physical polling place. The other question that we asked where we still found substantial barriers which involved folks with let’s say communication barriers, particularly those who are blind are visually impaired was that the equipment itself was to assure, you know, voting privately and independently. And there too we found substantial numbers of folks where that equipment did not afford them that right.
So the actual numbers of who had this particular disability, I don’t have that. Michelle may. But the actual percentages at the end of the day is that we still are pretty much butting up about 50% of individuals with disabilities are running into trouble getting in or if you happen to have a communication disorder such as blindness, you’re still not able to vote privately or independently.
>> Tari: And this is Tari. What we found that people with disabilities continue to face barriers because of architectural and physical barriers at registration voting sites and Clyde is correct that nearly 40% of the respondents to the NCD’s questionnaire encountered physical barriers at their voting places. Also that voters with disabilities do not have equal access to voting systems because states and localities have not invested the resources for the accessible voting technology update it, plug it in, learn how to Tuesday, et cetera, so 45% of respondents reported barriers inside the polling place involving voting machines. So the first was architectural. The second was technology. The third component we were asking about were attitudinal barriers and 45% of the respondents encountered barriers including attitude national inside the polling place and that 20% of the respondents said that they were prevented from exercising a private and independent vote.
>> Diane: This is Diane. We had an experience here with on the technology question. They got good machines here, I would say, but in Rochester, New York, but the poll workers tend to be volunteers who receive I believe it’s, you know, two to three hours of training overall. Some amount of training but that’s all that they get and it was insufficient to address the need to believe able to handle the machines effectively and that seemed to be the biggest barrier in our area so I’m kind of curious about I don’t know if that’s a breakdown on the nature of the technical problems but that’s what we found here.
>> Yeah, we also found in Californian executive director of one of the SILs here who is blind found that one of the propositions was not loading into the machine so she couldn’t vote on that. So in addition to the technology not working, there were also issues about what exactly was loaded into the machines. I believe there’s someone from N 236789 B on the call here. Do we know if NFB is going to be working with the polls or perhaps Michelle is it NDRN’s goal to do some effort around the 2014 midterm elections? I know that we also recommended that the ADA national network work with the physical polling places to make recommendations on physical accessibility but Michelle, are you aware of any organizing plans out there?
>> Hi, this is Lou Ann from the NFB. Can you hear me now?
>> Yes, we can hear you, good.
>> Excellent. We could very well be doing something, taking surveys, blind voter surveys as part of project 2014 midterm elections. We have done that in the past. We certainly could be doing that for the 2014 elections. We also well, particularly for the presidential elections have a blind voter hot line where voters can call in with problems too. I was wondering for the NCD survey, how many states were represented by the people who took the surveys and how how was the survey administered? How did you find the people who took the surveys?
>> Tari: Okay, well, this is Tari. It actually was technically a questionnaire and not a survey because I learned this myself but I’ll share it. Because the questions needed to be open ended so that’s the difference between a questionnaire and a survey. In addition to asking NDRN and its network of PNAs, we asked advocates becoming empowered to look at that time and to give us some feedback and it was through the National Disability Leadership Alliance, the 14 organization, it was posted on websites and e mails and we encouraged the national organizations to push it out, so to speak, to their local chapters, affiliates, et cetera. We sent it to disability service centers and career services at universities and we also posted it in social media. And Clyde did a blog for disability.gov early on when we first announced it. And we’re also planning to do a followup blog on January 6 on disability.gov as well that will reinforce the recommendations with the hope and the expectations with more than a hope but the expectation that they’ll be included in the Presidential Commission on Election mentioned we work through all the national disability organizations that are disability specific and cross disability. And then we also reached out to our diversity colleagues as well.
>> Okay, very good. Regarding this is Lou Ann again. Regarding voting technology, do the recommendations mention specific types, you know, of election mine, the second generation of technology, a number of states are moving back to a paper ballot. Are there any recommendations made regarding that in the NCD report?
>> Clyde: This is Clyde. The recommendation itself is asking states to, you know, maintain the equipment and update it to reflect new technology. I think we would be remiss if we were to name a particular technology today because it could be obsolete tomorrow. But I think what’s more important is that the principle of private and independent voting be assured, which a paper ballot does not get you particularly for voters who are blind or visually impaired.
>> Did that answer your question?
>> Yeah, I guess my concern and something that we’re facing mere in Maryland right now, there are some second generation accessible systems that, you know, can use a paper ballot or that produce a paper ballot. Some use the same ballot that is hand marked. Others do not. Others produce a paper record that looks different than the hand marked ballot. And this is a concern. You know, this certainly raises a secrecy issue so I was wondering if there was any kind of comment about that in the report.
>> Clyde: But I think the conversation is that the federal election and assistance administration needs to update its standards to reflect the changes in technology so that states have guidance when were open ended they go out and purchase new equipment.
>> Right, okay, thank you.
>> Well, also the NC recommendations that Congress direct future research and create incentives for the development of universally designed electronic and digital voting technology meet HAVA specific requirements for voting systems to be accessible for people with disabilities to permit a voter to verify his or her vote on a ballot in a private and independent manner before the ballot is cast and counted. And on page 13 of the report, many of the voting technologies currently in use including direct recording or electronics are DRE, an optical scan systems have been fraught with problems identified by voters. The problems undermine voter confidence and expressly mandate research to improve the quality, reliability, accuracy, accessibility, affordability and security of voting equipment election systems and voting technology. And I should at this point mention that the full report is available on NCD’s website under 2013 publications. And we can send a link but basically it’s www.ncd.gov/publications, spelled out plural, slash 2013/10242013, which was the date of the release so October 24th, 2013.
>> Clyde: Hi, this is Clyde. And I guess I was thinking who would actually do that recommendation would be the federal election assistance administration if Congress was so inclined to charge them with that recommendation.
>> And also one of our recommendations was that DOJ, the increase of enforcement of ADA compliance and pursue complaints raised by voters with disabilities to ensure physical, technological and architectural accessibility of the voting process. Thanks, Lou Ann. That was a good question.
>> Okay, sure. I appreciate it.
>> Tari: This is Tari. I have a question for Diane on the steering because you’re on the steering committee of NDLA. Are you aware of any organizing for the midterm elections that are happening with the member organizations and how can we best connect with NDLA to coordinate efforts?
>> You know, I’m not really aware of particular efforts regarding the election but I I know that some groups have brought them up and so I suspect there are things going on but just not maybe throughout the entire steering committee organizations. And I think probably the best way to coordinate would be the steering committee kind of facilitator or coordinator is Jim Weisman at United Spinal. That might be one good way. Or you could go through me and I’ll, you know, make sure that it gets added to the agenda for the next meeting which we meet monthly.
>> Oh, good. So when is your next meeting scheduled for?
>> That would be the first Monday of the month.
>> Oh, great. Okay. So the first Monday of January. Okay. Because what we’re thinking is Clyde said we’ll be on disability.gov on the sixth of January and you’re which is exactly the day of your meeting. So can we approach the steering committee to have a plan if the Presidential Commission on Election Administration either, A, includes NCD’s recommendations or B, does not include them as far as getting the record out and engaging you know, there will be a lot of media around that and so we want to be able to frame our debate which is why we’re keeping Clyde’s log on January 6th so we can be ahead of the announcement with the expectation that we expect full inclusion. So is there a way to communication with the steering committee in advance of your January 6th call to set up like a communications outreach or should that be going through Gary Arnold?
>> Well, I would say going through the NDLA Google group is one method and I think all the steering committee members are on that and that’s something you can be on. The other thing would be if you wanted to send me something, I can do a message to specific groups. Or what you may want to do is take those steps through NFB. I know they’ve been pretty closely engaged with what you’re doing.
>> Okay. That sounds great. Okay. Any other questions for Clyde or Michelle? Do you want to add anything as we’re getting to the top of the hour?
>> Clyde: Yeah, this is Clyde. I did leave out one other recommendation and that is to sort of mark the progress of accessibility, one of our recommendations is to ask the government accounting office in 2016 to again survey polling places across the country to see how much progress has been made. As Tari alluded to earlier, we have moved from 86% inaccessible to about 72% inaccessible and maybe in 2016 that number will be lower but we need an outside, objective source to sort of verify that.
>> That’s great. And actually our backup plan thank you, Clyde. Our backup plan in e mailing questions worked. This is from Denise Coley at the Washington Council of the Blind. Was any information collected about the number of people who are actually using the polling sites? Also what about issues in states that were vote by mail states?
>> Clyde: I’m not sure Michelle if you want to answer that in terms of numbers of individuals but as far as having a particular question of a particular state that did voting by mail, we really did not address that per se as again our charge from the senate was to really look at the implementation of HAVA and whether there was progress there and the provisions of HAVA pretty much dealt with physical access, training of individuals and the equipment itself used on election day.
>> And we actually did a full report on doing a word search right here Clyde, we did make one reference to that on page 18, NCD recommends that the presidential commission election administration identify, investigate and report on promising practices relating to voting processes that can be made available to protect the rights and enhance the experience of voters with disabilities and eliminate barriers to the electoral process. Such practices might include vote by mail systems such as that currently used in Oregon and to prevent absentee ballot voter status recently introduced in Connecticut. So that’s in one of the I guess finer points in the report. Denise, in response to your question, was any information collected about the number of people who were actually using the polling site, if we could get back to you, that would be great because we’re right up at the top of the hour. Would that be okay? I guess you’re going write me an e mail that says either yes or no. All right. Well, thank you, Diane and Jessica. We’re at the top of the hour. And I also want to thank our CART provider and thank you for staying up with us as we talk faster than we should. And thank you everybody for joining us and we want to wish you happy holidays and a good 2014 and we’ll be back in touch.
>> Thank you very much.
>> Thank you.
(End of meeting)
This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.