WASHINGTON — Editor's note: The above video is from Jan. 30.
Senators Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) today introduced a bill that hopes to make voting easier.
The Accessible Voting Act aims to reduce barriers to voting for older individuals, individuals with disabilities, Native Americans, Alaska Natives and voters with limited English proficiency.
“Our democracy is stronger and better off when every American has the opportunity to fully participate. Yet for many people with disabilities, barriers remain to voting, running for office, and serving in local government,” said Casey. “This new suite of legislation will help tear down those barriers and ensure that people with disabilities are no longer disproportionately excluded from American democracy.”
The act would support state and local efforts to make polling places more accessible. A Government Accountability Office study found that in 2016, only 17% of the polling places it examined were fully accessible.
The Accessible Voting Act would:
- Establish the Office of Accessibility within the Election Assistance Commission to support and oversee state efforts to expand voter accessibility and serve as a resource for advocates and voters.
- Establish a new state grant program for the Office of Accessibility to administer for the improvement of accessibility when registering to vote, voting by absentee ballot, and casting a ballot in person.
- Provide up-to-date voting information and resources, through easily accessible websites, to ensure voters know how to register to vote, cast an absentee ballot and are able to find help if their right to vote is challenged.
- Expand the number of options to cast a ballot in federal elections to ensure older voters and voters with disabilities can utilize the voting option most accessible for them.
- Create a national resource center on accessible voting to conduct cultural competency trainings for election officials and poll workers to create truly accessible voting systems.
- Re-authorize grants to states, through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to improve voting accessibility for older Americans and people with disabilities.
Sens. Casey and Klobuchar released “Barriers to Voting for Older Americas: How States are Making It Harder for Seniors to Vote,” in 2017, a report that explains how suppressive laws and inaccessible polling places can disenfranchise elderly Americans. The report found that strict voter identification laws, closure of voting locations, inaccessible polling places and limits on early voting and absentee ballots are preventing seniors and people with disabilities from voting.