Civil Rights and Equal Access
Voting Accessibility
Issue Overview
After recent close and disputed elections, there is an increased focus on upgrading voting machines to improve their security and accountability to ensure that every voter can cast a ballot with confidence that it will be counted. Updating voting machines must also include a focus on improving accessibility for the disabled. With older voting machines, a visually impaired voter would have to bring another person into the voting booth in order to successfully cast a ballot. This reliance on another individual did not allow a visually impaired voter to cast a ballot in privacy, nor have full confidence that their vote was cast as intended.
Technology has improved to the point where voting machines can be equipped to allow a visually impaired voter to cast a ballot both privately and independently.
Lighthouse International is closely monitoring the issue to make certain that accessibility for the visually impaired is fully considered as crucial criteria when states and election boards choose which new voting machines to purchase.
Current Legislation
Federal
Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007 (HR 811/S 559)
This legislation contains a section mandating that all voting machines be accessible for disabled individuals so that every voter can vote privately and independently.
For more details on the bill, including bill text, recent legislative action and list of sponsors, click here.
For more details on the bill, including bill text, recent legislative action and list of sponsors, click here.
For more details on the bill, including bill text, recent legislative action and list of sponsors, click here.
For more details on the bill, including bill text, recent legislative action and list of sponsors, click here.
Lighthouse International has tips and advice for visually impaired individuals on how to handle and identify different currency. You can access that information, here.
Read about other policy issues:
Vision Care and Rehabilitative Services
What You Can Do
New York State
S 2841
The bill guarantees blind and visually impaired citizens the same access to voting machines and systems as every other citizen.
A 5170/S 1648
This bill provides for the implementation of paper ballot only technology including optical scanners and accessible ballot marking devices.
Types of Voting Machines
There are three voting machines used by Election Boards across New York State. To view a map of New York counties indicating which machine the county uses, click here.
Paper Currency
Issue Overview
Making paper currency accessible to the visually impaired community has always been an important policy issue. Accessible paper currency was pushed to the forefront of national debate when, in November 2006, a United States District Court ruled that keeping US currency the same size and texture violates the Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability.
To read the official Lighthouse response to this issue, click here.
Current Legislation
Catherine Skivers Currency for All Act (HR 1931)
This legislation in the United States House of Representatives requires the production of Federal Reserve notes in a manner which enables an individual who is blind to determine the denomination of each such note.