Below are a couple excerpts from a report posted on Tolerance.org. Tolerance.org is a sister site of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The entire article can be read at:
http://www.tolerance.org/news/article_tol.jsp?id=1049*************************************
Tacitly acknowledging that, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002. HAVA requires every polling place to have at least one accessible voting machine.
"I think most people think the ADA took care of everything, but it hasn't," said Stephen Bennett, president and CEO of the national office of United Cerebral Palsy. "It should have been taken care of, and it's ridiculous we need HAVA at all — and then on top of it, HAVA isn't even being funded or implemented."
HAVA, enacted in 2002 to do what the ADA had failed to do, remains under-funded and largely unimplemented. Only 18% of approved funding has been allocated, and at least 75% of polling places remain unchanged and unimproved since the 2000 presidential election.
The result? The American Association of People with Disabilities indicates at least 20% of polling places are inaccessible to people with disabilities.
*******'Don't block my vote'*********
United Cerebral Palsy and the National Organization on Disability estimate that about 20 million people with disabilities didn't vote in the 2000 presidential election. To put that in perspective, fewer than 550,000 votes separated Bush and Gore that year.
Voter turnout in 2000 stood at 51% nationally. Among people with disabilities, a state-by-state breakdown found voter turnout fell below 50% in 44 states — sometimes much lower. Voter turnout among people with disabilities in Georgia, for example, stood at 30.5%.
*****'The primary right'******
Thomas Paine described voting as "the primary right by which other rights are protected."
*****Things to do.******
:: Find out what polling places must do to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/votingck.htm:: Download a copy of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights' April 2004 report, Is America Ready to Vote? (PDF, under "Recent Briefings and Papers.")
http://www.usccr.gov/