EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Jim Dickson
Organization : | American Assoc. of People With Disabilities (AAPD)
Post Date : | 9/30/2005
General Comments
Comment : | Recommendation: We recommend that the guidelines should recognize that accessibility for people with cognitive and psychiatric disabilities includes preventing the denial of access to registration and voting for individuals who have the capacity to vote. Individuals are routinely denied access to registration and/or voting based on mental disabilities, often despite the fact that they meet state voter qualifications. In some cases, the denial is based on inappropriate determinations that an individual is not competent to vote made by people who are not qualified to make such determinations, such as election officials, long term care providers, poll workers, or other individuals. In other cases, the denial is based on state laws barring individuals placed under guardianship from voting regardless of whether they have the capacity to vote. Such laws conflict with federal disability rights laws and the United States Constitution. See Tennessee v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509, 525 n.13 (2004), citing Doe v. Rowe, 156 F. Supp.2d 35 (D. Me. 2001), as an example of cases involving violations of the constitutional rights of individuals with disabilities. In Doe, the court concluded that Maine's statutory and constitutional provisions barring individuals under guardianship by reason of mental illness from voting regardless of those individuals' capacity to vote violated the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as the U.S. Constitution. Such types of denial of access to the franchise are as significant as denials of physical access. Indeed, the accessibility mandate imposed by Congress in Title III of HAVA was broad and unequivocal: voting systems "shall be accessible for individuals with disabilities . . . in a manner that provides the same opportunity for access and participation (including privacy and independence) as far other voters." It strains credulity to think that Congress could have intended this mandate to prohibit inaccessible voting machines but to tolerate practices that wholly deny access to voting machines based on a voter's mental disability. Thus, it is appropriate for the VVSG to contain a guideline stating that: An individual shall not be denied the opportunity to register or vote on account of a mental disability unless the person has been determined by a court to lack the capacity to vote. While such a guideline does not involve technical expertise, it is nonetheless involves an extremely significant area that should be addressed as part of an effort to address the accessibility of voting systems to individuals with disabilities. Addressing this issue in the VVSG is important because the absence of any mention of this issue in the guidelines could be construed to indicate that denials of access to registration and voting based on mental disability do not fall within the scope of HAVA's accessibility mandate. In the event that the EAC determines that it is not appropriate to address this issue through a guideline, at a minimum, the VVSG should contain an acknowledgement that the guidelines do not address all of the access issues that may arise for individuals with mental disabilities under HAVA. Finally, Congress gave long and careful thought on the question of disability access to making the voting system accessible. Congress provided a specific date. Furthermore, when Congress January 1, 2006 deadline, it reinforced the notion of "access now". The EAC should be wary of overstepping Congressional intent. Thank you for your consideration. Yours for a barrier-free society,