Expand options for voters with disabilities
As a quadruple amputee, I completely understand Martin Cahill’s frustration with voting (“Make electronic ballot return an option for blind voters,” Jan. 29). When I first started to vote in the 1970s, I could not even get into my polling site and had to opt to vote with an absentee ballot that you needed to mark by hand, fold, insert into two envelopes and mail, which is much more difficult for me, a voter without hands and feet.
Disabled In Action in New York City in the 21st Century brought a lawsuit against the Board of Elections in the city to get accessible polling sites, which it won. We now have ballot-marking devices in polling sites. However, these devices are aging out and need to be replaced.
Sen. Zellnor Myrie must amend his bill (S2892) regarding electronic ballot returns to include voters with disabilities and military voters, and Myrie should track the inclusive bill from Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assemblyman Harvey Epstein (S5729/A5280).
Further, the Brennan Center for Justice identified the problem and hopefully actively supports the solution of electronic ballot returns for voters with disabilities. Now the election committee in the Senate and Assembly, as well as Gov. Kathy Hochul, must make it a top priority that electronic ballot returns become a reality for the largest disenfranchised minority, voters with disabilities, who have historically been ignored and excluded from exercising their civil right to vote, with dire consequences. Let’s champion the civil rights of voters with disabilities.
Kathleen Collins
New York City The writer is a board member of Disabled In Action of Metropolitan
New York.