Texans with disabilities fear new restrictions on voting help could mean criminal charges at the polls. | via TexasTribune
Voters wait in a line outside a polling location in Houston on Oct. 13, 2020, the first day of early voting for that year’s election cycle.
“We don’t want to jeopardize our attendants, but we want to be able to vote, but we need our attendants’ help, so we’re in a Catch-22,” Crowther said. “It’s a bigger swath of the voting populace that will be scared off and what will happen is that people will not vote. But I’m not going to give in to that.”
“There are voters with disabilities who use their personal aides or personal attendants to assist them in completing daily tasks, and voting is a daily task,” said Molly Broadway, a voting rights training specialist at Disability Rights Texas, adding that she has already received calls from assistants afraid of incurring criminal charges for activities that are usually part of their duties. “It’s a very present, very real need that exists.
If an assistant appears to be breaching the new rules, poll watchers have been instructed to inform their county’s election administration office. Upon reviewing the case, election administrators may reach out to authorities to investigate the case. But Chase Bearden, the deputy executive director at the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities, said that’s part of the problem: Inadequate state guidance has created confusion among voters and leaves the responsibility of determining what may constitute a violation to election workers.
Broadway, of Disability Rights Texas, said she has seen more hesitation among Texans to assist voters with disabilities at the polling station than in previous years.
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