For several months prior to Election Day, the New York City Board of Elections (BOE), Disabled Voters for Harris, and other disability organizations hosted multiple in-person and virtual sessions to educate disabled voters on how to have a private and independent voting experience. Disabled voters did their homework and came prepared. Poll workers and BOE on the other hand, did not.
A spokesperson at Disability Rights New York said that the organization heard from several voters across the state regarding malfunctions of accessible voting machines known as Ballot Marking Devices (BMDs). Some encountered trouble when printing and using the write-in feature, while others encountered false information on broken BMDs. There was a lot of dismissiveness on repairs of the machines and overall accessibility, resulting in some voters considering filing complaints under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).
One of the disabled voters thinking about going forward with a complaint, described his voting experience as a “travesty,” in an op-ed posted in the New York Daily News. Gian Carlo Pedulla is a blind individual who voted at P.S/I.S. 226 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Upon arrival, Pedula immediately found out that his site’s BMD was not working. He was treated quite poorly by poll workers who “lacked any sense of common courtesy or respectful behavior towards a fully functioning adult who happens to be blind.” After ordering him to sit down, they also called the cops on him for being independent and trying to vote with the help of Aira, a live visual interpreting service, over a video call using his iPhone. The BMD, which malfunctioned due to a paper jam, underwent an hour of maintenance and was still ruled “inoperable” by the only tech person available in the zone. BOE told Able News in an email that the technician, who showed up 90 minutes after being called, gave “no report stating that the BMD had to be replaced.”
“I want to cast my vote independently and privately in a reasonable amount of time,” Pedulla told Able News in an email. “The 2.5 hour dog and pony show I had to endure was utterly ridiculous and not comparable to anyone else’s voting experience at that site. I wonder, how many other people across our country needed almost 3 hours to vote on Election Day?”
Another blind voter, Dr. Sharon McLennon-Wier, who chose to partake in early voting, also encountered accessibility issues. Dr. McLennon-Wier, the Executive Director of the Center for Independence of the Disabled New York, has been an avid voter since 1992. She voted on the first day of early voting with her husband’s help to fill her ballot. She has yet to vote independently over the years because “the ballot marking device has not been readily available,” and this time was no exception. She arrived half an hour before closing time and was asked to wait for someone to turn on the machine, but she refused. “I would like to see one day, in New York State and maybe throughout the country, where the ballot marking device is not seen as that special machine for people with disabilities,” Dr. McLennon-Wier said. “I would like to see universal access.”
Notably, this year, the option for protection against discrimination on the basis of identities—including disability—to the already existing Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in the New York State Constitution was ballot proposal 1. When asked if the disabled community will be well represented going forward and whether the government will actually follow through, Pedulla said “not sure honestly…Are we ever well represented?”
But, people with disabilities have the power to change this. As Pedulla added, “I believe it’s up to us individually to make the magic happen as much as possible.”