Federal laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Help America Vote Act require accessible voting systems, to ensure equal access and participation for people with physical and visual disabilities.
Once inside, many accessible voting stations are not set up for wheelchair access, they allow other voters waiting in line to observe the ballot being marked and they do not have headphones ready for blind voters to use the audio function.
By next year, the state must have fully accessible voting machines in every polling place statewide — including the 1,369 in New York City.
You say "disability-rights groups have been clouding the voting machine debate by suggesting that the nation must choose between accessible voting and verifiable voting".
We agree: a national commitment to a fully accessible voting system, including voting machines that can be used by people with visual impairments, is crucial.
The second is majoritarian, to keep the arteries of democracy open and free-flowing through a robust, transparent, and accessible voting process.
Disabled people have historically faced great obstacles at the polls, and disability-rights groups are right to work zealously for accessible voting.
The real issue, though, is that disability-rights groups have been clouding the voting machine debate by suggesting that the nation must choose between accessible voting and verifiable voting.
Lighthouse International, New York City's oldest and largest vision rehabilitation agency serving people of all ages who are blind and partially sighted, sees no contradiction between accessible voting and verifiable voting for all Americans.
They added a couple of accessible voting machines in the House chamber, removed two seats to give me a spot to pull in and installed a new speakers' podium that makes it possible to speak on the floor.
Oregon is unique in that the state uses a vote-by-mail system and Five Cedars make remote accessible vote by mail ballots for state residents with disabilities.
