Many vote sites lacked disability access

Fewer DES MOINES, IOWA than one in five polling placeswere fully accessible to voters with disabilities during the 2016 general election, a government report shows— a finding that has prompted federal officials to recommend the Justice Department adopt stricter compliance rules.

The report released Thursday by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office comes less than aweek before mayoral elections in Atlanta and New York, elections for governor in NewJersey and Virginia and a special U. S. House election in Utah, and gives a window of only a year to address problems before the 2018 congressional elections.

The bottom line in the report is that accessibility for voters with disabilities has not kept pace with the increase in early voting that has occurred in many states since the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and the 2002 Help America Vote Act.

Just 17 percent of the 178 polling places officials examined nationwide in the days leading up to last year’s election, and on Election Day, were without any impediments to voters with disabilities, despite the vast majority of states reporting they’d taken adequate care before voting started.

Most problems were found outside buildings where the votingwas taking place, such as steep ramps, poor parking accommodations or hazardous path surfaces. The report included a photograph of a collapsed folding table laid between a street and the curb as a makeshiftwheelchair ramp.

Most polling places examined had at least one voting station that was usable by people with disabilities.