On Valentine’s Day, one day before over 250 independent living advocates filled the corridors of the New York State Legislature on the annual NYAIL Legislative Day, the NYS Assembly and Senate introduced and summarily passed bills exempting village elections from voting accessibility requirements. No public notice, no hearing, no chance for comment.

According to the online Assembly voting records, not one single member of the Assembly voted “Nay” on this slap in the face of the disability community.
Assembly bill A3093B (S3216) “…allows villages which administer their own elections independent of their local boards of election to use lever voting machines in the administration of said elections until December 31, 2012.” The stated “justification” is as follows:

“Some villages in New York State which have not opted to have their elections administered by a local board of election do not yet possess voting machines that are compliant with HAVA [Help America Vote Act] and New York State Law. … In an effort to give villages sufficient time to either acquire HAVA compliant voting machines or to make the decision to cede village election administration to local boards of election, this bill allows for the use of lever voting machines until December 12, 2012.”

Boards of election already have voting machines that comply with HAVA, so a simple village resolution to have the local board administer the election is what’s needed for a village to have use of the accessible machines. Apparently, some villages do not want to meet the requirements for programming the new machines or printing paper ballots.

Haven’t New Yorkers with disabilities already waited far too long for equal access to the ballot? As a physically disabled person who can vote independently using either a paper ballot or the new accessible voting machines, I was disappointed to face the impossible obstacle of lever voting machines when I first moved to New York in summer 2008. In the last two elections, I was glad to have new options. My blind and visually impaired friends and colleagues were pleased as well, though there have been a few “kinks” to work out in terms of poll worker training.

Now, apparently without any hesitation, our hard won and long awaited voting rights have been tossed aside in an overwhelming show of bipartisan agreement.
The disability community is calling on Governor Cuomo to veto this bill. To join that effort, please “Take Action” using the advocacy message provided by our sister center, the Center for Independence of the Disabled in New York. Don’t let our voting rights be trampled down. Make your views known now – the time for delays and exemptions from voting access is over!