ACTION ALERT

Protect Accessible Voting

NCIL actively works with the AAPD Disability Vote Project and other groups to ensure that all Americans have the right to vote privately and independently. This is consistent with our members' policy priorities (http://www.ncil.org/documents/2007Priorities.doc). The alert below requires your immediate attention to protect progress made by the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

 Thank you for your continued support.

Contact your members of Congress while they are home between now and April 13 and tell them to protect our right to vote privately and independently in the 2008 presidential elections. The leading election reform bill, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act H.R. 811, introduced by Congressman Rush Holt (D, NJ-12), includes an unrealistic deadline for every voting machine to produce an accessible voter-verifiable paper ballot by next year. Tell your Members of Congress to change that paper ballot deadline to allow time and provide funding for new voting systems to be developed that are accessible, certified for use in elections, and can accurately verify votes.

When the paper ballot requirement of the Holt bill is coupled with the access requirements of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), it will require election officials to purchase technology that does not currently exist. The Holt bill acknowledges this problem because it requires the federal government to study how best to make its voter-verifiable paper ballots accessible to voters with a wide range of disabilities, and requires the government to report on its findings by January of 2010. In the absence of these findings, how can election officials move forward with a 2008 deadline for accessible paper ballots?

Background

On February 7, 2007, Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) introduced the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act H.R. 811, which would make a number of major changes to the Help America Vote Act. The bill would require all changes to be in place for the primaries in next year's presidential election; require that all polling places use equipment in the 2008 presidential race that can produce an accessible, voter-verifiable paper ballot; require other substantial changes in election practices. For purpose of this alert we are focusing on the paper ballot requirement.

H.R. 811 currently has 200 cosponsors and bipartisan support. Last week, the House Committee on Administration postponed consideration of the bill at the last minute. We anticipate that the Committee will approve H.R.811 and send it to the full House for consideration after Congress returns from their current spring recess April 13. Once it passes the House, we anticipate that the Senate will want to act quickly on a parallel piece of legislation.  

Because of the requirement in the 2002 Help America Vote Act that all polling places have at least one accessible voting machine by 2006, we have seen significant improvement in voting accessibility since the 2002 elections. AAPD does not want to move backward on accessibility, and we have been advocating along with other disability and civil rights groups that any voter verification system must meet HAVA's requirements that voters with disabilities can access that system with privacy and independence. Unfortunately, we are still awaiting the development of an accessible voting machine that can meet the Holt bill's paper ballot requirement and that has been tested and certified for use in elections.

We are working with other disability advocates, including NCIL, to convince members of the House and Senate that the 2008 paper ballot deadline in the Holt bill is unrealistic, and will in effect force election officials to either violate the paper ballot requirements of the bill or violate the accessibility requirements of HAVA and the bill. We have also been advocating that new funds must be made available to enable election officials to purchase equipment once there is equipment that meets the bill's requirements, which will likely take several years to be developed. The House of Representatives is expected to pass the bill as it is considered the leading election reform vehicle that is moving in this Congress.

Call your U.S Senators and Representatives via the Capitol switchboard at 1-202-224-3121 and ask them to move back the paper ballot deadline in the Holt bill, and take any other steps necessary to ensure that voters with disabilities will be able to vote privately and independently in next year's critical presidential elections. Please do not hesitate to contact Deb Cotter at Deb@ncil.org  for further information.