Monday, February 13, 2012

Vote! It's Your Right!

Last week I encouraged the ADHD community to focus on the election, to plan a strategy for educating oneself about the issues and candidates, to register and then vote. I have been asked several questions by my ADHD colleagues which I hope to answer in this blog.   Who can vote? Originally the...
11/ 7/08 5:42pm
In past elections, many of us have experienced and/or witnessed polling places and voting systems and processes that failed to fully accomodate voters with ADD, ADHD, dysgraphia, dyslexia, and other "hidden" disabilities. Many of us also encountered frustrating and humilitating prejudices of elections officials. Would you and your colleagues please create, review, and discuss the variety of accomodations (including appropriate awareness and sensitivity training for elections officials) that would make the elections, and all phases and aspects of the voting process (as defined by the HAVA and other laws) more accessible to people with ADD and "related conditions?" This is an underexplored, but critical, area of civil rights advocacy, education & training, graphic & industrial design, computer science, human factors analysis, neuropsychology & cognitive science, etc. We have a Constitutional right to independently cast secret and secure ballots and to otherwise participate fully in electoral politics. How can our governments (usually at the state and local level), elections officials and staff, voting systems manufacturers, political parties, and other institutions make this not only more possible, but also more probable? Note that many laws, regulations and official guidelines discuss access for people who are visually, physically, and/or aurally impaired in great detail (even, for some reason, distingushing "the blind" and "the deaf" from "the disabled"). The same is ot true when it comes to cognitive, learning, psychiatric, or neurological conditions/disabilities (except for any related motor, visual, or aural impairment). Let's change that. {Note: no license to this content is granted by member except in order to have comment addressed.}

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