Accessible voting for all. (Sounding Off).President Bush recently signed "The Help America Vote Act The Help America Vote Act (HAVA, Pub.L. 107-252) is a United States federal law passed the House 357-48 and 92-2 in the Senate[1] and was signed into law by President Bush on October 29, 2002. " into law. This new election reform legislation requires that accessible voting equipment be available in every polling place across the nation. Voters who are blind or have low vision as well as those who do not have the manual dexterity to use a pen will be able to vote an independent and secret ballot secret ballot n. 1. A type of voting in which each person's vote is kept secret, but the amassed votes of various groups are revealed publicly. 2. See Australian ballot. Noun 1. , many for the first time. The new accessible voting machines use a voice output to read the ballot to the voter. Provided that election officials order machines with multi-language capabilities, language minorities will also be able to use these machines. But, there is another group of potential voters who still need to be accommodated in the voting process. Three large segments of the disabled community--the learning disabled, the cognitively disabled and persons with mental retardation--continue to have significant problems in voting. For example, in the U.S., there are more than 6.5 million eligible voters with mental retardation mental retardation, below average level of intellectual functioning, usually defined by an IQ of below 70 to 75, combined with limitations in the skills necessary for daily living. (MR). People with mental retardation are legally allowed to exercise their franchise unless they are under guardianship and the guardianship states specifically that they are not permitted to vote. Nationwide, the MR community has led the broader disability community both in voter registration Voter registration is the requirement in some democracies for citizens to check in with some central registry before being allowed to vote in elections. An effort to get people to register is known as a voter registration drive. Centralized/compulsory vs. and voter turnout. Still, in the 2000 Presidential election, only 41 percent of Americans with mental retardation voted--10 percent lower than the number of those without mental retardation who voted. A key reason for this low turnout is inaccessible polling places and voting systems. Current Federal Election Commission (FEC See forward error correction. FEC - Forward Error Correction ) standards do not address accommodations for voters with cognitive or learning disabilities. However, these voluntary standards require a periodic review and revision by the FEC. The FEC has an opportunity to change future standards and open up independent voting to the millions of Americans with cognitive and learning disabilities. The time is now. By designing a ballot with both a picture of the candidate and the political party symbol, the election community could reach out and welcome the millions of voters with learning and cognitive disabilities as well as the illiterate and language minorities. These ballots are already used in many third world countries with gratifying grat·i·fy tr.v. grat·i·fied, grat·i·fy·ing, grat·i·fies 1. To please or satisfy: His achievement gratified his father. See Synonyms at please. 2. results--voter turnout, especially among first-time voters, is extremely high. VOTER LINKS * American Association American Association refers to one of the following professional baseball leagues:
* The Arc of the United States www.thearc.og * National Association of Developmental Disability developmental disability n. A cognitive, emotional, or physical impairment, especially one related to abnormal sensory or motor development, that appears in infancy or childhood and involves a failure or delay in progressing through the normal Councils www.naddc.org * National Association for the Mentally ill www.nami.org * National Mental Health Association www.nmha.org * National Learning Disability Association www.ldanatl.org |
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