Election '08: Helping All to Vote
Granite State Independent Living partnered with the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office to provide outreach and education about new accessible voting procedures in New Hampshire. GSIL staff members started making phone calls and visiting communities in August in preparation for the November elections, bringing their message of empowerment through accessible voting to libraries, senior centers, assisted living facilities, disabilities assistance organizations and agencies, and consumer peer groups all over New Hampshire. A week before the November 2008 election, Erica Marden, Information and Referral Coordinator, and Kim Maynard, ELT Administrative Assistant of GSIL, visited the IOD Concord office to educate staff members on accessible voting in New Hampshire. As a result of the HAVA, all 310 polling locations in New Hampshire now receive an accessible voting kit. The kit contains a bright lamp and a page-size magnifier to make ballots easier to see, communication cards for individuals with hearing impairments, and a signature template, a thick plastic card with holes in it that is placed over a ballot so an individual can feel with their fingers where to sign. The cornerstone technology in every accessible voting kit is the Inspire™ Voting System, which allows individuals with vision impairments to use a touch-tone automated phone system that prints a completed paper ballot via fax machine. This system is also equipped with an adapter for sip-and-puff technology, allowing individuals with limited or no use of their hands to use the system via a mouth-controlled input. This new equipment was first available to NH voters in some local elections in 2007; 2008 marked the first year that the new system of supports was in place for a presidential election. “People feel more independent and feel that their basic civil rights are being upheld,” said Ms. Marden, sharing feedback from members of the Federation of the Blind about the new vote-by-phone system. “Individuals who may not have left their homes to vote in years—who have been voting via absentee ballot—are finally able to come out to the polls on election day and vote along with their community.” |
The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 mandates that all polling locations and ballots in the US be accessible to people with disabilities. Many states use electronic voting, but since New Hampshire is one of the few states that require votes be cast via a marked paper ballot, significant supports had to be developed and implemented to make voting more accessible.