I voted by mail in the 2020 presidential election because it was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and I didn’t want to risk going in-person to the polls. I thought it would be a bureaucratic headache, but it was a snap. My paper ballot came to me in the mail. I marked off the candidates of my preference, sealed up the ballot in the official envelope, and deposited it in the nearest drop box.
Actually, I didn’t do all that stuff by myself. Because of my physical disability, I need other humans to assist me in doing a lot of life’s routine tasks. So I had some of the people that I hire assist me with marking my ballot according to my instructions. Then they sealed it up in the return envelope and dropped it in the box.
I must admit that it never occurred to me that, if I wanted to cast my ballot in complete secrecy, without anyone else assisting me and thus knowing my business, I wouldn’t have been able to do so using the paper ballot.
That’s why the National Federation of the Blind of Alabama and some disabled Alabama voters are suing their secretary of state, John Merrill, with the assistance of attorneys from the Southern Poverty Law Center. They filed a lawsuit in federal court in June that says that in order for people who are blind or have print disabilities to be able to “vote privately and independently by absentee ballot,” they need “an accessible electronic ballot that they can read and mark on their own computers or smart devices, using their own assistive technology.”
The suit charges that, by not providing disabled voters such as these with that option Merrill is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities by recipients of federal funds.
The response of the defendant so far has been to try to get the case dismissed. But the plaintiffs say the solution is simple. Their lawsuit says that the kind of electronic voting option they seek is already widely used across the country, including in Alabama. According to the lawsuit, Alabama has developed a system that enables residents who are overseas or in the military to receive and submit absentee ballots electronically. The lawsuit adds that disability rights advocates have repeatedly asked Merrill to do the same for disabled voters in the state, to no avail.
So now it’s up to the judge to decide whether to dismiss the case or let it proceed.
Now I realize that voting electronically is the only way I would be able to vote remotely without anyone else’s physical assistance. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.
I’m going to find out if my state offers that voting option. I don’t know if I’ll use it if they do. My preference is to vote at my local polling place on Election Day and bring someone along to assist me. But if I do vote that way, it’s only fair that I do so by choice, not because I had no other option.