Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the, Don''t Forget To Cast Your Vote Accessibility Of Polling Places, conference call. At this time all participants are in the listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press * and then zero on your touch tone telephone. As a reminder this call may be recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for todays conference, Mr. Peter Berg, you may begin.
Thank you very much, Ashley and thank you to everyone for your patience. We are waiting for our captioner to arrive. We need to ensure that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) audio conference is accessible to all participants so we greatly appreciate your attention. This is a very important topic and one that folks have great interest in. The ADA National Network is a project of the -- I''m sorry, the ADA audio conference is a project of the ADA National Network and is coordinated by the Great Lakes ADA center. The ADA National Network is funded by the United States (US) Department of Education, National Institute on Disability Rehabilitation and Research. The ADA National Network is the foremost leader in providing information, training and materials on the Americans with Disabilities Act. So we welcome you to the final session in the 2011-2012 ADA audio conference series. Today''s session is being recorded and I will provide information at the end about accessing the archives. Let''s welcome everyone. I just want to quickly go over some of the features for those participants that are joining us in the webinar platform. To access the captioning features of the platform, you can click on the CC icon at the top of the screen or control F8 and that will allow you to size the captioning to fit your needs. You can also change the layout of the webinar room by selecting the view menu and then the layout and size the lay out to fit your needs. We please ask the participants in the webinar room to not use any of the icons. Click on any of the laughing icons that can become distracting to the presenter and to other participants in the room. Finally, individuals in the webinar platform can submit questions while the session is going on. You will not be able to see your submitted questions. They will be viewed by the moderator and by the speaker. And you can submit those while the session is going on by clicking on the chat area or control M will get you into the chat area to submit your questions. Participants that are joining by telephone, when we get to the Questions and Answers (Q&A) portion of today''s session we will bring Ashley back on. She will give you instructions on how you can ask questions. All right, now I want to turn it over to our speaker today and want to also thank her for being patient with us today. I want to introduce Faith Gross, who is a rights advocate with The Legal Center for People With Disabilities and Older People, which is located within the Colorado''s Protection and Advocacy System. So welcome to you, Faith and take it away.
Thanks, Peter. Welcome, everybody. I just want to start with a comment on the title of this session, Don''t Forget To Cast Your Vote, Accessibility Of Polling Places. So I do wonder if there is anybody out there that could possibly forget to cast their vote. I''m here in Colorado. We are one of the seven or nine or ten or so swing states. And we have been inundated with political ads since, well really since 2011. So it is pretty hard to imagine that anybody could forget to vote and people do seem to be pretty engaged with this election. So I''m going to give you an overview of -- I''m going to talk about disability turnout. Then Im going to give you an overview of federal laws and then we are going to talk specifically about accessible elections. In 2008, according to a study that was done at Rutgers University by Lisa Shur and Douglas Cruz, 14.7 million Americans with disabilities voted in 2008. We do find that typically in a Presidential election year, there is a higher turnout than in other federal election years and often higher turnout than in local elections. This turnout of 14.7 million was an increase of nearly 4 million, exactly 3.8 million, over the 2000 election. However, the turnout of people with disabilities was still 7 percent lower than the general population. And those figures were provided to the election assistance commission during testimony by Lisa Schur from Rutgers University in October of 2009. So what are some of the barriers to participation in elections? First of all, inaccessible polling places or voting equipment that is not accessible. We will talk more about both of those. Other barriers could include a voter being challenged or to be found ineligible to vote because of a mental disability. And there are a little over 40 states that have some type of restriction on the right to vote based on a mental disability. In some states, folks who are under guardianship must get the permission of their guardian to vote. In other states, folks who are in an institution due to a mental disability may not have the right to vote. I always like to tell folks that Colorado is not one of those states. We have absolutely no restrictions on the right to vote here based on any type of disability or guardianship status. Other barriers could include the refusal to allow a voter to bring their assistant of choice. Or it could be refused or hurried or rushed assistance. We have found that poorly trained poll workers can create barriers to voting. Another issue could be, nontraditional signatures could be questioned and many states have requirements for witnessing signatures that are made with a mark or perhaps a signature stamp. So let''s talk about the different federal laws specific to voting and people with disabilities. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, among many other things, guarantees the right of people with disabilities to have voting assistance from a person of their choosing. The only exception to this would be that the person cannot receive assistance from their employer, an agent of their employer, or their labor union. The reason for that is to prevent someone exerting undue influence on the voter. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, specifically section 504, prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability by entities receiving federal funds. And certainly state and local election administrators in their government are recipients of federal funds and therefore covered under section 504. However 504 does not specifically address voting by people with disabilities and has not had a significant impact on improved accessibility. The Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act of 1984, was truly the first law that started to address polling place accessibility. And this law generally requires polling places to be physically accessible. However, if no accessible location is available, then only an alternate means of casting a ballot is required. Typically that would be an absentee or mail ballot or a change of a polling place. If the person''s assigned polling places is inaccessible, they must be assigned to an accessible polling place, hopefully nearby, or be provided with an alternative means for casting their ballot on election day. This requires the voter to request in advance -- to request this change in advance of an election day. So in my opinion it places the burden on the voter to visit their assigned polling place in advance, check out accessibility, and then make a request to either vote absentee, because their polling place is not accessible, or to request reassignment to a nearby accessible polling place. One of the provisions of this law, The Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act, is that a state election administrator cannot require notarization of medical certification of voters requesting absentee ballots. Previous to this law it was common practice for a voter requesting to vote absentee because of the disability or inaccessible polling place to have to provide medical certification and often times, notarized medical certification. Now, a State may require medical certification to establish eligibility to be placed on a permanent absentee ballot list or to even request a permanent absentee ballot application. And then also the State may require medical certification if a person requires or requests an absentee ballot after the deadline for such a request. Now we get to the ADA. Title II of the ADA requires that all public entities make reasonable modifications to rules, policies, or practices to ensure nondiscrimination in programs, services, and activities of state and local governments. It extends the protections under section 504 regardless of the size of the government or their status in terms of receiving federal funds. The ADA does require effective communication with people with hearing, speech, or vision disabilities. Unlike the other laws that I''ve mentioned, which only apply to federal elections, the ADA applies to both state and federal elections. So specifically to voting, there have been court decisions interpreting the ADA which have found that Title II does not require every polling place be accessible to persons with mobility disabilities or other disabilities and in fact, focused on programmatic accessibility. So relocating a person''s polling place or providing an alternate means of voting would suffice for ADA purposes. The ADA does not guarantee privacy to voters with disabilities. The ADA - and these are all court decisions -- did not guarantee voters who are blind or visually impaired to have the right to cast their vote independently and privately. The next slide in this series is The National Voter Registration Act of 1993. This law is also called Motor Voter. The purpose of this law was to increase the historically low registration rates of eligible U.S. citizens, and the low registration rates being primarily due to discrimination. It does include requirements specific to people with disabilities and this is because, again, people with disabilities have historically had a lower turnout to vote than the general public. NVRA requires all state-funded programs, which are primarily providing services to people with disabilities, to offer voter registration to people with disabilities. Examples of state-funded programs could be the State Vocational Rehabilitation Agency. If the state mental health department or division is providing direct services, those offices or agencies would be required -- so, for example, in our state the State mental health institutes, which used to be the state mental health hospitals, are required to provide voter registration under Motor Voter. However, in our state, many of the disability services are contracted out. For example, in our Developmental Disabilities or Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities System, there are community center boards that are at the local level and they provide funding and often direct services or contract for services for that population. The mental health or behavioral health centers receive funding from the state and from the federal government to provide those services. So there is a provision in NVRA where the State''s Chief Election Official, may designate a private community-based organization that receives state funds to serve people with disabilities to be an NVRA agency. Now just take a minute and talk about some of the barriers to this or some of the resistance to becoming an NVRA agency. There is paperwork involved. There are reports that are required to be filed with the -- either the local election officials or the state election officials. There are declination forms that are required to be completed if a person obtaining services or applying for services declines to register to vote. There is some paperwork. So a lot of particularly, community-based agencies, but also state agencies, tend to be reluctant and see this as an unfunded burden or mandate. Now we get to a law that is near and dear to my heart. That is The Help America Vote Act, which is also known as HAVA. HAVA was passed in 2002 in response to the election administration issues that came to light during the 2000 presidential election. Most of the focus has been on the issues in Florida with the butterfly ballot and the recount and several other issues. But as it turns out, Florida was not unique in experiencing election administration problems. It just was the state with the closest number of votes separating the two major candidates and so it got most of the attention. So HAVA includes several provisions that are designed to improve voting access for citizens with disabilities and I''m going to focus on those. HAVA section 261 authorized payments to the states and local units of government to -- and this is a quote, "assure access for individuals with disabilities." I''ve included the citation on the slide here for those of you that wish to look this up. These payments are generally made to the state and to the chief election official of the state, and then are granted to local government election administrators. Our state, which is -- we have a Secretary of State and his staff have developed a very simple grant process, grant application, and include an accessibility task force, of which I''m a member, to review these grant applications and make recommendations. The accessibility task force is made up of individuals with different types of disabilities and advocates for people with disabilities. And we often take a common sense approach to these grant applications. And at times have made recommendations that are somewhat different from the grant request. But we think would be more effective and perhaps more cost effective. I''ll talk more about these. So the purpose of these grant funds are to make polling places, including the path of travel entrances, exits, and voting areas of each polling facility, accessible to individuals with disabilities, including the blind and visually impaired, in a manner that provides the sale opportunity for access and participation, including privacy and independence, as for other voters. That is pulled right out of the Help America Vote Act language. HAVA section 261 funds also provide individuals with disabilities with information about the accessibility of polling places, including outreach programs to inform the individuals about the availability of accessible polling places. So these funds could be used to develop and print brochures with information about voting and voting rights for people with disabilities. Could be used to provide information about the specific accessibility of various polling places. Could be used to host voting -- accessible voting machine fairs. So there''s a real broad way that these funds could be used to improve access and participation by voters with disabilities. HAVA section 261 funds can also be used for training election officials, poll workers, and election volunteers on how best to promote the access and participation of individuals with disabilities in elections for federal office. I believe that once we''ve trained folks on access in federal elections, we''ve essentially trained folks for access in state and local elections. HAVA section 261 funds are administered by the administration for intellectual and developmental disabilities which is under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I do want to take a minute and talk about the current status of this HAVA section 261 funding. In the current federal fiscal year budget, which is going to end on September 30th, there was no allocation of these funds. And the reason provided for this was that there are several states, although not the majority of states by any means, that have not used these funds and returned this money to the U.S. Treasury. This money can be rolled over for up to five years. So here in 2012, folks could still be spending their 2008 funds and be okay. But there were enough states that returned money to the U.S. Treasury from this program or this provision in HAVA, and so both the president''s budget and Congress'' budget for this year, eliminated funding under HAVA section 261. I know in our state we still have funds. They are in compliance. They have been spending funds. We are, as I mentioned earlier, we have an accessibility task force that provides advice on how these funds are spent and we take that responsibility very seriously and are very committed to spending these funds in the best way to get the best outcome in terms of improved access for voters with disabilities. So we are not just spending funds to spend the funds. We are carefully spending these funds and I believe that that is the case in many other states. Moving on to the program that I administer in Colorado, HAVA section 291 established the newest Protection and Advocacy program, which is called Protection and Advocacy for Voting Access. Or PAVA, P- A-V-A. And every state and territory and the District of Columbia has a PAVA program. The purpose of PAVA is to ensure full participation in the electoral process for individuals with disabilities, including registering to vote, casting a vote, and accessing polling places. HAVA specifically states that none of the funds provided to the Protection and Advocacy agencies under this section, can be used to initiate or otherwise participate in litigation related to election-related disability access. However, the P&As, which is our shorthand for Protection and Advocacy organizations, do maintain their ability and authority to use other federal funding for election-related polling place accessibility litigation. In a little while I will tell you about a couple of lawsuits and a complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice by P&As. Moving on to the next section of HAVA specific to people with disabilities is Section 301. And Section 301 requires that each polling place for federal elections have at least one Accessible Voting System, which is -- our shorthand for that is AVS. This is a quotation from the law, including non-visual accessibility for the blind and visually impaired. To provide the same opportunity for access and participation, including privacy and independence, as for other voters. This requirement may be met through the use of at least one Direct Recording Electronic voting system, or also known as a DRE, or other voting system equipped for individuals with disabilities at each polling place. I can tell you that this has been a somewhat controversial requirement under HAVA. We could probably do a whole session -- training session -- just on accessible voting systems. I will give you my personal opinion, which is that these systems were -- well, this is not opinion. This is true. These accessible voting systems were developed to the 2002 Federal Election Commission voting equipment standards, which predated the Help America Vote Act. And unfortunately, the technology has not -- or the voting systems -- has not kept up yet with advancements in technology. I will, in a few minutes, talk about a couple of research grants in this area. But these machines currently are available in every polling place for federal elections and in many states for state and local elections. They are not always the most user-friendly voting machines. And we have a long ways to go to bring them into -- to bring them up to universal accessibility standards. So under HAVA, there are some other requirements: developing minimum standards for the accessibility of voting systems, requiring states to include people with disabilities on the mandatory HAVA state plan committee. This was all work that was done in 2003 and 2004. Each state was required to develop a plan showing how they will bring their elections administration into compliance with HAVA and how they plan to spend their HAVA funds. So there were people with disabilities, or there should have been people with disabilities, in every state participating on those state plan committees. HAVA also provides funds for research on accessible voting technology. And HAVA established a state-based administrative complaint procedure to remedy any grievances covered by the provisions of HAVA. And while I earlier mentioned that the Protection and Advocacy agencies are prevented from using PAVA funds or HAVA funds for filing litigation, we may use those funds to assist people with disabilities in filing grievances under their state grievance system. HAVA also created the Election Assistance Commission, also known as the EAC, to serve as a national clearinghouse and resource for the compilation of information and review of procedures with respect to the administration of federal elections. The EAC is responsible for developing the voting system guidelines, including standards for accessibility. So in 2005, the EAC began working on, what is called, the Voluntary Voting Systems Guidelines, VVSG. There were folks with disabilities involved in that, in those boards and commissions or task forces, working on that. Then The Access Board, I believe, was also involved. The Election Assistance Commission had Accessible Voting Technology Initiative grants. And these -- there were two large multi-year grants that were awarded. One was awarded to Clemson University. And another one was awarded to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. I believe the grant money for these was awarded either late last year or early this year. These are three-year grants. Both grants have multiple partners and they appear to be still in the process of gathering information. As I understand the grants, the goal is to develop the most universally accessible voting equipment technology. And by universally accessible, I mean not only access for voters who are blind or have low vision or for perhaps, voters with hearing disabilities, but also voters with cognitive disabilities. Speaking of the EAC, I did want to highlight an advisory that they issued in early 2007. This was specific to voting by mail or absentee voting. And a polling place should be considered to be any location where a voter appears in person to cast a ballot, including an early voting site. So an absentee in-person voting location is indeed a polling place and therefore, an accessible voting unit is required. I believe that any clerk and recorder''s office or local board of elections office or local registrar''s office, which are typically emergency polling places during an election, are also absentee polling places and, therefore, must have available, an accessible voting system. So now we are going to talk about -- specifically about -- polling place accessibility. The GAO, Government Accountability Office, reported in October 2001 on a survey that they had done during the 2000 Presidential election. They found that 84 percent of the polling places across America limit access for people with disabilities in some way. They found that 23 states reported having accessibility requirements for elections. But they also reported that no universal standards for state and local voting accessibility -- that there were no universal standards for state and local voting accessibility in law or practice. In 2008 the GAO again surveyed polling places in the Presidential election. They visited 730 randomly selected sites across the United States. They found that 72.7 percent of the polling places across the United States had at least one potential barrier to full access for voters with disabilities. They found that 45.3 percent of those -- of all the polling places visited -- had potential barriers, but offered curbside voting. I''ll talk more about curbside voting in a minute. They found that 27.4 percent had potential barriers but did not offer curbside voting. They found that almost all of the polling places that they visited had an accessible voting system. They found that 43 states have established accessibility requirements and funded improvements to help facilitate accessible voting. And it is to my understanding that the funding for those improvements did come from those section 261 funds. Thirty-one states reported that ensuring polling place accessibility is very challenging and they -- the GAO also recommended that the U.S. Department of Justice expand its monitoring and oversight of polling place accessibility. I want to take a minute and talk about curbside voting. Curbside voting is when, because the polling place is inaccessible and a person with a disability cannot access their polling place, the poll workers will bring out the ballot, including -- bring out a voting machine if the voter needs one or if that is the method of voting for that particular jurisdiction, and will bring it out to the person outside of the polling place. We do not, in Colorado, have curbside voting. It is not authorized in our election laws. We do have a requirement or a provision in our state election law that requires that every polling place be fully accessible for people with disabilities and meet the minimum requirements set by the Secretary of State''s office. Those minimum requirements are the ADA requirements. I did have, back in 2004 in Fort Collins, Colorado, a gentleman who was a wheelchair user who went to his polling place. The main entrance to the polling place had a brick threshold. He was not able to get over the threshold. Unfortunately there was no signage directing him to another accessible entrance to this polling place. And apparently the election judges did not -- that''s what we call our poll workers in Colorado -- were not informed of this alternate accessible entrance. So they took this gentleman''s ID, which was his driver''s license and they went back into the polling place to check him in and get his ballot and somehow managed to lose his driver''s license. So he sat outside. This was early in the morning in November. He sat outside in the cold for about 20 or 30 minutes while they tried to find the lost driver''s license. And they did find his license, they did bring it back out to him and as you might imagine, he was pretty upset. We did file a complaint with our Secretary of State. The county clerk in that particular county, when he heard about the complaint, just shut down that polling place for the next election and moved it to another location. But in fact, I discovered, when the Statewide Independent Living Council, which I was a member at the time, held a meeting at that very same church, that in fact there was an accessible entrance to that church. So all of this could have been avoided with better signage and better training of election judges. So polling place surveys. Many states now have provisions in their state law that require that polling places be fully accessible. Many states require that polling places be surveyed either every year that there is an election or only during federal election years. So if it is only during federal election years, that is every two years. One of the more popular survey forms is the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) ADA checklist for polling places. It was released in February of 2004. It does not appear to have been updated to reflect the recent changes in the ADA standards that were promulgated in 2010 and went into effect in March of this year. This checklist is 39 pages long, which can be pretty intimidating for some surveyors. It does include information on how to actually conduct the survey and what I especially like about this document is that it includes temporary solutions for election day. I want to be spend a minute just talking about temporary solutions. Earlier on I noted that the section 261 funds are administered by the Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. And they have issued guidance to the States that solutions for -- temporary solutions for election day are preferable in sites that are not government-owned buildings and for sights that there is no long-term commitment to use that particular facility as a polling place. So for future elections. So temporary solutions include temporary signage and my least favorite temporary solution, which is the use of traffic cones to designate parking spaces and access aisles. The reason why this is my personal least favorite solution is that the traffic cones can be run over or moved. And I cannot tell you how many elections where I have been out doing accessibility surveying, where I have seen smashed cones, moved cones, or ignored traffic cones. They do not provide very effective barrier removal solutions. So back to the checklist. Many states use the U.S. DOJ ADA checklist. Some states use abridged versions, which may not have diagrams or suggestions for bringing the site into permanent or temporary compliance. This checklist does not include restrooms, primarily because people typically do not go to a polling place to use the restroom. Although, when there are long lines, that certainly may be necessary. And restrooms could be -- an accessible restroom could be an accommodation for a poll worker with a disability. So while restrooms are not on the survey form, people should consider restrooms depending on the circumstances of that polling place. Some states have designed their own survey checklists. Some of these incorporate state-specific accessibility requirements. And the state that comes to mind quickly is California, which has its own accessibility requirements that sometimes go above and beyond what the ADA requires or the minimum required by the ADA. In California''s survey form, appears to reflect the California requirements. I did a quick Google search and came up with several states very quickly, that had their own survey forms or were using some version of the U.S. DOJ survey form. So I urge you, if this is something you are interested in, to check your state''s -- state election officials'' website for their survey form or do a Google search for your state. So what is the hierarchy of doing a polling place survey? We start with accessible parking. This is on the survey form. Actually on election day, I start with: Is there signage for the polling place that is visible from the street? And if the signage for the polling place is not visible from the street, are there other signs directing folks to -- or voters to that -- the entrance of that polling place? Then we look at parking. Is there accessible parking? Is the accessible parking properly signed? Are the parking spaces in compliance with the minimum requirements under the ADA? Are there van accessible parking spaces? Are there access aisles? Are the access aisles clearly marked? Are they wide enough? If there is a passenger drop-off location, then we look at: Is this an accessible passenger drop-off area? We look at accessible path of travel to the building. Are the curbs ramped? Are there ramps in lieu of stairs? Are there hazards in the walkway? Are there tree branches hanging down? Shrubs sticking out? Cracks or breaks in the sidewalk? We are looking for any type of hazard or barrier. Then we move on to the entrance to the building. Is the doorway, when open, is it a minimum clearance of 32 inches? Is the door hardware accessible? Is the threshold no greater than one half inch beveled? Is there enough maneuvering area? What we don''t look for are automatic door openers and closers. We consider those to be a solution to a problem, but they are not required. Once we get into the building, then we look for an accessible path of travel to the actual polling site within the building. Is the polling place set up to provide an accessible path of travel and accessible voting booths or stations? And are the booths or stations set up to ensure privacy for the voter? So just a couple of comments here. I have seen polling places that would have been accessible within the building if the polling place itself had not been set up with a table in the doorway or with voting machines right next to the doorway so that there''s no clearance. I have stood in the doorway of polling places and been able to read the voter''s ballot on the screen of the voting machine because of the way the voting machine or voting stations were set up. These are all things that can easily be fixed or prevented in the first place. So very, very briefly I''m going to mention a couple of lawsuits and a complaint. These were by my sister agencies across the country. Kerrigan versus the City of Philadelphia was a lawsuit that was filed by Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania. The attorneys on this case were Robert Meeks from Disability Rights Network and Steve Gold. And Pennsylvania had a pretty interesting and somewhat unique set of facts that I think led to a settlement agreement that was favorable to people with disabilities. Pennsylvania does not offer early voting. Pennsylvania does require people to provide a reason for requesting to vote absentee. And in the City of Philadelphia, there were 1100 polling places and many of which were inaccessible for voters with mobility disabilities. And so eventually, as a result of this lawsuit, the plaintiffs and the City of Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, entered into a settlement agreement that required surveying of all of these polling places in the city, removal of barriers where possible, or relocation of the polling places wherever possible. The Department of Justice also got involved and reached a settlement with the City of Philadelphia which mirrored the settlement in the lawsuit. So if you want more information about this, you can go to www.DRNPA.org and find post settlement reports on this case, which indicate the progress in bringing all these polling places into compliance. I did learn this year that the City of Pittsburgh, which I should share with you is my home town, now has -- or at least as of last June -- reported that all but seven of their polling places were ADA compliant, which I think is a remarkable achievement. The Advocacy Center, which is the Louisiana Protection and Advocacy Organization, has filed a lawsuit against the Jefferson Parish and they found that -- excuse me -- They found that, the lawsuit is still pending. I believe they are in settlement discussions. But they found that a specific polling place had a very steep ramp and no safety features, which I believe would include hand railings and edge protection. And there was a voter who is a wheelchair user who was unable to get into her polling place. The lawsuit alleged that as a result of the failure of election officials to comply with federal disability rights laws, this individual and others were discriminated against because of their mobility disabilities and were not given an equal opportunity to vote in the same manner as their neighbors without disabilities. And after the complaint was filed, the advocacy center surveyed 69 polling places and found barriers to individuals with mobility impairments at 78 percent of the surveyed sites. Finally I want to talk briefly about the Michigan Protection and Advocacy Agency which is Michigan Protection and Advocacy System and Flint, Michigan. In 2010 the Michigan P & A embarked on a very ambitious project, which was to survey all of their polling places in Michigan. And they found that they had pretty good cooperation from most of the local jurisdictions except for the City of Flint. They filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, who investigated and got involved and as a result, the Department of Justice did reach a settlement agreement with the City of Flint, Michigan. That agreement was reached earlier this year. And the goal of that agreement is to make all of Flint''s polling places accessible by this November''s election. So just very briefly, I just want to run through other issues around accessibility. So for me, accessibility is an awareness of the history of systemic and institutionalized discrimination against people with disabilities in elections, on election participation. Many states still have laws that restrict the rights of at least some people with mental disabilities to participate in elections. Accessibility is implementation of and compliance with the disability requirements of NVRA or motor voter. Accessibility is recruiting and accommodating as needed poll workers with disabilities. Accessibility is well-trained poll workers who are able to provide effective customer service, including providing assistance to voters who request it. Accessibility is good public transportation to polling places whenever possible; polling location signs that are visible from the street with large letters and good contrast. Accessibility is secure voting systems that provide all voters with the opportunity to vote privately and without assistance. Accessibility is effective communication in all aspects of election administration, including print materials in alternate formats. This would apply to polling places and also mailed or absentee ballots. Accessibility is simplified language on the ballot. This is something that all voters could benefit from. I vote in a State that has many, many, many ballot issues and the ballot issues are often written in very legal language that is very difficult to understand. We partner up with the League of Women Voters. They do a ballot issues pamphlet or sometimes it''s almost a great American novel because we have so many issues. And we take the League''s explanation which lists -- which is fair and even and does not take sides. And we take that and simplify it. The challenge with doing a simplified version is to maintain the integrity of the information while making it understandable. But that is always a very popular service that we provide. It is popular with voters who do not have disabilities as well as voters with disabilities. Then captioned public service announcements and commercials are key for accessibility. So people with disabilities should suffer just like everybody else when it comes to accessing commercials. Finally just some other issues that we really didn''t have time for today. Challenges to voters eligibility based on a disability. The narrow photo ID requirements, since some States are implementing this year. Usability, reliability of DREs or the Direct Recording Electronic Voting Machines. And accessibility of all mail elections. Finally I want to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart, which is election protection. This is the National Election Protection Coalition which is spearheaded by the National Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. Here in Colorado we have been doing our own Election Protection Coalition since 2004 and the disability community is very involved with this. So we have now, in 2008, we partnered with the National Election Protection Coalition and we have a hot line which you may have seen promoted and should see promoted before this election and on election day. That is the 1-866-OUR-VOTE hot line and there is also a website, which is: www.ourvote.org. So I think we are ready for questions.
Alright, thank you very much Faith for all that great information that you have provided to us. I failed to mention if you want to take a look at Faiths full bio that is available on the ADA Audio Conference Website www.ADA-audio.org. I am going to ask Ashley to come back on and give participants on the phone, instructions on how they can ask questions at this point. For folks in the webinar room, you can submit questions in the chat area by clicking on the chat area or Ctrl M to submit your questions there. But Ashley, could you give instructions for telephone participants please?
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen if you have a question at this time please hit * and then 1 on your touch tone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the # key.
And while we are waiting for that, Faith, go to one of the questions that was submitted in the chat area. Someone asked a question about filing a complaint where there are physical barriers to a polling place, if they can file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice.
You can file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice. There is no guarantee that they will investigate your complaint. I do encourage folks to file a complaint with their state elections office and to file that complaint as a HAVA complaint or an ADA complaint. Their state election administrator should have an ADA coordinator. I hope they have an ADA coordinator. And that would be a person to initially contact to file the complaint. But absolutely encourage folks to file complaints, whether it be at the state level or with the Department of Justice.
Okay, and one more question before we check to see what we have on the phone. Someone wanted clarification; I think this was early on in one of your slides. They were asking about Title II of the ADA applying to state and local elections.
Title II of the ADA definitely applies to state and local elections.
Yeah. I think they were looking for clarification because I think you had mentioned federal elections and I think what you were getting at was that it is the state - it is the local governments that are actually hosting the polling locations for the federal elections.
Yes. Thank you for that clarification.
Ashley, do we have a question on the telephone at this time?
Yes. Our first question comes from Gary Adler. Your line is open.
Hi, my name is Merrill and my question is, would Section 301, stating that every polling location needs to have an accessible machine for those who are visually impaired. I''ve noticed when I early voted and went to the board of elections, they necessarily dont have a machine. This was even as early as like last year. Now, with that being said, if they don''t have a machine, what can I say that they have to have that is ready for me?
Okay. I need one point of clarification. Was this a federal election? Or a local election?
Last year it was a local election but I''ve also done the federal election in 2010 and federal in ''08 as well. And each and every time they just - they had one - they had like two representatives representing me. One, you know, from the board of elections, one being Republican and one being Democrat and, you know, reading it to me rather than having an actual machine.
Ok, well, an accessible voting machine is required for every federal election. So federal elections are even-yeared elections. And depending on your state law, there may be a provision in your state law that requires an accessible voting machine for all elections that are administered, say, at the county level. Our state, Colorado, does have that provision in state law. However, local municipal elections or special district elections are not covered under the Help America Vote Act nor are they covered under our state election law. They are covered under a different law. And so, in our state, municipal or local elections are not required to have an accessible voting machine.
Okay.
For all federal elections, an accessible voting machine is required and I urge you to file a complaint and to contact your Protection and Advocacy organization to help you file that complaint.
Okay.
Alright. Thank you for your question. Faith, I want to get to a question that someone had submitted in advance. What can people do, election day, where they run into issues?
Well, the first thing I would encourage you to do is contact one-866-our-vote. There should be folks there who are very knowledgeable about accessibility issues and hopefully can contact someone either at the state level or at the county level or local level to get the problem resolved. Otherwise the individual probably, unfortunately, would have to go to the local election administration office or call that office to either get the problem fixed or to file a complaint.
Okay. Very good. Ashley, do we have any other question on the telephone?
We do. Our next question is from Mat Norris. Your line is open.
I''m going to read the question here: Will all Social Security offices issue an ID? And will that ID be acceptable for voting in states that require IDs?
The question is about IDs and I really do not know the answer. I''m not aware that Social Security offices would issue IDs to anyone and I''m not aware of any state that accepts a Social Security card, you know, the card that we all get with our number on it when we first apply for a Social Security number. I''m not aware that that is an acceptable form of ID. However, many states do accept a, -- of the states that require ID other than photo ID, will accept a current Medicaid or Medicare card. I know our state does.
All right. Thank you for the question. Ashley, do we have another question on the telephone?
We do. Our next question is from Sheila Laurie. Your line is open.
Hello. This is Robert Kimery. My question is, if you have a polling place that is, let''s say a church and all parts of it are basically accessible except for the public transportation. The public transportation stops approximately 200 yards from the church. The stop is really not accessible. You can get off and hope you don''t get run over but there''s no access to the polling place because there''s no sidewalk. We''ve requested they move the stop to the polling place so that you can get off there at - off the polling place but they don''t want to do that. Is that okay?
In my opinion, no. It is not okay. And I would encourage you to contact your protection and advocacy agency and get them involved in this issue. However, the law does not require that polling places be located right next to a public transportation stop. And in fact, once you get out of large, metropolitan areas, most rural areas don''t provide public transportation at all. So what I encourage people with disabilities and advocates to do is to get involved with your local election administrator. Build a relationship with your local election administrator and work with them to find alternate polling sites that are accessible by public transportation wherever possible. It is a big issue and I agree with you. It''s not okay, it''s a problem. But it is not something that we have anything in law to support us. It is good practice.
Yea, someone submitted a comment early on, when you were speaking about what good does it do to have accessible polling place if you can''t get to the polling location. So I''m guessing that that person was commenting about the transportation. Transportation is one of those issues that cuts across a lot of different access, getting to employment to healthcare to-- to vote and a lot of different areas.
Absolutely. I do have - Ill tell you, when I get calls from voters, often on Election Day or during early voting who are seeking accessible transportation to the polling site, I encourage them to contact one of the campaigns, one of the political campaigns. So -- decide which of the candidates that they are voting for who might be most likely to be able to provide accessible transportation or other transportation to you and contact that campaign. Believe me they will do everything in their power to get that voter to the polling place on election day. And then I would also -- ahead of the election, do some advocacy with the campaigns. Call them up: Are you, oh by the way, do you provide accessible transportation? Do you have the capacity to transport somebody who is using a wheelchair to their polling place? So it gets their attention and they really do want to get -- If theyve got a good, get out the vote effort going, they will find a way to get you to your polling place.
That''s an excellent suggestion. Ashley, do we have another question on the telephone please?
I am not showing any further questions. Would you like me to re-prompt?
Yes, if you would, please.
Ok. Ladies and gentlemen to ask a question hit * and then 1 on your touch tone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the # key. We have a --
Let me get this in real quick Ashley. Faith, if you could, someone asked when you were talking about states that had returned HAVA funds, if you could list those? If youre not sure which ones those are, where someone might be able to find that list?
You know I do not know which states those are. But I do believe -- I''m trying to think of where you can go. I have seen this in the past. I would recommend -- I''m going to sound like a broken record here, but that you contact your states'' Protection and Advocacy organization and ask them about the status of your states'' 261 grant funds. They should know. The P & A should know.
Ok. Ashley, could we go to our question, please?
Yes, we have a question from Rick Edwards. Your line is open.
Hi. Yes, I have an individual who has filed complaints with the Social Security - with the Secretary of State''s office, I''m sorry, the HAVA administrator for the past five federal elections and gets a letter from them saying they will look into it. Where is the next level?
That was a big sigh on my part. Again I would say again, sorry, but go to your Protection and Advocacy organization and ask them to assist you with the complaint and finding out what has happened with the complaint. And then maybe taking the next step to file an administrative complaint with the Department of Justice.
Ok, he said that he did that for the last two of the complaints, got P & A involved.
And you still don''t have resolution?
No, it is the same issue about the parking situation.
I really do not have an answer.
Ok.
I can tell you that in our states statute, while there are requirements that every polling place be accessible, there are no penalties if a polling place is not accessible.
Yea.
Alright, thanks for your question, Rick. Ashley do we have another question?
We have a follow up question from Mat Norris, your line is open.
Thank you, I have another question here, how objective and independent are the states Protection and Advocacy organizations? Are they not part of the government and thus a conflict of interest in representing a voter?
Thats a great question. I believe that the majority of P&As are non-profit, community based organizations. I know ours is. There may be a few that are located within state government but they should be operating entirely independent of other state agencies and should be advocating for the rights of individuals with disabilities in their state, just like any other P&A. So, I would hope that those P&As that are located within state governments are not compromised in their advocacy.
Right, excellent. Thank you for the question. Ashley do we have one more question on the phone?
I am not showing any further questions in the queue.
OK. And then just one comment that someone put in the chat area on how they deal with transportation issues is that they vote absentee ballot instead of dealing with the transportation issues where they reside.
And I - you know thats -- absentee voting is, or, we now, in our state, we do not call it absentee anymore because it is so popular. In fact about two-thirds of our voters do choose to vote by mail in every election. However - and so that is - it is certainly more convenient however we also want to get the message out to candidates and to elected officials that people with disabilities vote, so that they start taking us more seriously. So I do encourage people with disabilities, particularly people who have observable or visible disabilities, to go to their polling place to vote. Even when it might be easier to vote by mail or vote absentee. Now, if your polling place is inaccessible and you know that in advance and you do not want to be hassled, I certainly understand voting absentee or by mail. So it is an individual choice.
Right. In Colorado, if you could Faith, how is the counties done in terms of maintaining the accessible voting machines? And, you know, since they are not used every day, how are they done in terms of making sure that they are training the polling location staff so that when someone that needs to use the accessible polling machine, that they know how to operate it?
Great question, I - very quickly, our secretary -- well we are on our fifth Secretary of State since I started doing this work in 2003. But our - maybe our second Secretary of State was sued by a group called Voter Action because of the certification process of the accessible voting equipment. And I will share with you that the judge did say from the bench, that the state had done, and this is a quote: an abysmal job of testing and certifying the electronic voting equipment. As a result of that case, the settlement of that case required extensive security measures and warehousing requirement for the voting equipment, temperature control, video surveillance, very very specific requirements. We have found, across the county, that poll workers have been receiving better training on how to operate the machines and how to demonstrate the machines. In 2006, the first year that the accessible voting machines were required, I attended a coworker training where the person doing the training held up the audio headset, waved it in the air, and said, If anybody requests to use one of these, call our office. Needless to say, after I observed, that process changed, and in fact, there was much better training. And so, in our state, many of the counties have machine judges, and these are election judges or poll workers who are specifically trained on how to operate the machines, how to set up the machines, to turn them on, make sure they are voter ready, and then are trained on how to assist any voter or show any voter, how to use the machine that the voter requests at assistance.
Ok, great. And someone submitted a comment in the chat room that the people with disabilities make up 20% of the population vote and when you add family and friends, make up a pretty large percent of the voting population. I think that goes to your point of letting the campaigns know that you are out there and you want to be part of the process.
Absolutely, and several states have organized disability vote coalitions. You can do a Google search or you can go to the website of AAPD - American Association of People with Disabilities - and they can - they list some of the states that have formed disability vote coalitions. And the whole goal is to a) educate the disability community, including family, friends, and allies about the importance of voting and the importance of voting in the interest of people with disabilities.
OK, excellent. Well we are at the bottom of the hour. Faith, I want to thank you for putting together this presentation. I can tell that a lot of time went into the preparation in providing this valuable information to our participants. I want to thank our participants again, for your patience in the delay of getting started today. I wanted to let folks know that the - todays session will be archived in the audio archive along with the text transcript will be available on the ADA Conference website in approximately ten business days. www.ada-audio.org. Also wanted to make folks aware that the - we do have a few sessions identified titled, for the new audio conference season that will kick off in October. So the first session of the new series will be October the 16th. That session is titled, the application of ADA - Im sorry, The Application of Federal Tax Incentives Supporting the Americans With Disabilities Act. And the presenter of that session will be, Dr. Craig White. You can get information and registration will be available in the upcoming days and information about all of the sessions in the upcoming season will be available on the ADA audio website. Again www.ada-audio.org. If you have any questions, you can contact the Great Lakes ADA Center regarding the ADA Audio Conference by calling 877-232-1990. And if you want to get in touch with your regional ADA center for information, training, or materials on the Americans with Disabilities Act, you may reach your regional ADA center by calling 800-949-4232. So once again, thank you to Faith and thank you to all of our participants. Hope all of you enjoy the last few days of the summer season, for those of you that will begin to see a significant change. Thanks for joining us today and we look forward to having you join us in October. Thank you and good day.