Visually impaired Washingtonians face unique obstacles to voting

As Washington registered voters received their ballots for the August primary, Marci Carpenter had to sit idle.

Carpenter is blind and can’t fill out a mailed ballot in the same way as everyone else. Her choices were to fill it out online then print it, or visit a Vote Center on a weekday to cast her vote on an Accessible Voting Unit. But since she can’t print at home and has a job during the week, she had no choice but to wait until election weekend to cast her vote.On top of those challenges, as the first primary approached, Carpenter fell ill and couldn’t safely go to a center to vote for herself. So she had to pick a friend to cast her ballot for her and hope they marked it to her choosing.

“Voting to me [is] one of our most important rights and responsibilities as American citizens,” Carpenter said. “To not be able to vote privately and independently hurt me a lot.” Carpenter is president of the National Federation of the Blind in Washington and a member of the King County Elections Disability Advisory Committee.Of 1.4 million registered voters in Washington, about half wait until Election Day, or the days before, to cast their ballots in person, according to Julie Wise, King County Director of Elections. Those with disabilities, including those with seeing and hearing impairments, are often among this group, as accessible early voting can be difficult. King County Elections offers a couple accessible voting options. The National Federation of the Blind and partner organizations want to improve access and are advocating for online ballot return and alternate ways of verifying identity, according to Carpenter. Similar options are already available in Washington for overseas service members. “If you can’t fill out your ballot privately and independently during the same times that everyone else can, that election is not accessible,” Carpenter said. “The other things that we’re doing are just Band-Aids.”The optionsVoters with needs for ballot accessibility have a couple of options. King County provides an online ballot-marking option for voters with vision impairments to cast their ballot privately, according to the county website. Once completed, the voter must print their own ballot and return it by mail, use a ballot drop box, or visit a Vote Center. Carpenter points out how few people, including disabled people, own a printer anymore, and traveling to a voting center might not be realistic. “[Voting centers] are only usually open on weekdays during business hours. So for anyone who works, that’s not feasible,” Carpenter said. Those who can travel to a voting center can vote on an Accessible Voting Unit, designed to enable people with seeing disabilities and partial hearing disabilities to vote independently. Those who are deafblind could require a co-navigator, usually hearing and seeing, to help fill a disabled person’s ballot, according to Ryan Bondroff, who is deafblind and a vocational rehab counselor based in the SeaTac area. “The co-navigator reads each question, and the [deafblind] person answers by selecting a choice. Then their co-navigator writes or fills the circle box on that selected item. It can be a very tedious and time-consuming task,” Bondroff said. Jamal Mazrui, who is blind and has hired a co-navigator in the past, says having one dampers his voting experience in multiple ways. “It does mean less independence because then my vote isn’t a private experience. And depending on the politics of the person who’s assisting me, there can be some awkwardness,” Mazrui said. Mazrui, among many with seeing and hearing impairment, voted in person Oct. 19 at an event hosted by the Seattle Public Library. King County Elections partnered with the National Federation of the Blind of Washington to provide one-time weekend voting access for people with disabilities prior to election weekend. The King County Elections office relies heavily on “trusty messengers” to spread the word about events such as the one on Oct. 19, according to Naheed Aaftaab, language access and community outreach supervisor at King County Elections. “We try to do things proactively, but we don’t always get it right. Often we do our work through invitation. […] So we rely a lot on [the] community reaching out to us to tell us what they need,” Aaftaab said. Kendall LeVan Hodson, chief of staff at King County Elections, helped manage the Oct. 19 event, recognizing that accessible voting units are not perfect, yet an important stride forward for independent voting.“Democracy is really important, and it’s the time of year where people really feel that, so seeing them get to come in and cast an independent ballot and feel like they have their voice heard … it’s something that always fills my cup,” Hodson said. The next weekend when accessible voting units will be available will be the weekend of Nov. 2, right before the election, according to Aaftaab and Hodson. For Mazrui, accessibility issues go beyond casting a vote; they prevent him from exercising his full democratic right to participate in electoral campaigns. Other political limitations“Not being able to do things like phone banks … has dampened [my independence] because I really wanted to be able to participate in that way as well, and I haven’t found an accessible way to do that,” Mazrui said. Receiving fair, unbiased candidate information is another key factor for any voter looking to make a decision on whom to support. Various organizations for the disabled foster opportunities for community members to access information in their preferred method of communication, according to Bondroff. The Lighthouse for the Blind, Inc., used to include election information as part of their community classes, according to Bondroff, but that was 10 years ago. “Everyone loved this class because it helps us to make informed decisions because the election information in the mainstream media is always huge and very complicated,” Bondroff said.Mazrui tried searching for candidate information on his own, but came up short. “That’s another area [where it] would be great if just candidates in general try to make sure that all of their websites or their campaign materials are published in conformance with accessibility guidelines,” Mazrui said.After many meetings and communications across leadership, Carpenter endorsed a new method of voting — new, at least, to Washington. Efforts have been made to make electronic ballot returns a reality. House Bill 1475, which has been proposed in multiple legislative sessions but has never made it out of committee, would allow certain populations in Washington to return their ballot electronically through an online ballot portal, according to Rep. Darya Farivar, D-Seattle. This proposal would not only help those with disabilities, but also improve the current online ballot return for military and overseas voters.But it’s not without issues. The current process includes emailing your ballot back to your county, which Farivar says presents serious security concerns. Wise said that King County Elections acknowledges the potential security concerns, but is “fully supportive” of working toward a solution with technology experts. “[Security concerns] really shouldn’t be a barrier because these days we pay our rent online, people pay mortgages online, we do taxes online and there are lots of ways to verify your identity,” Carpenter said, firmly believing disabled people need online voting in the near future. Across the country, disability activists are filing lawsuits over the inaccessibility of voting systems statewide, according to Farivar, who worries that Washington runs the risk of joining these states. However, Farivar says H.B. 1475 is on hold for the time being. “I’m not planning to reintroduce it this legislative session because I want to have more of that community conversation,” Farivar said. Instead, advocates plan to focus on providing alternatives to ballot signatures. King County Elections will pilot a different identity verification method during spring elections in April 2025, according to Wise. This would be a game-changer for the Deafblind and blind community, according to Farivar. “All of these things are options, because it’s not a one-size-fits-all,” Wise said. “We have to provide all of this menu a la carte options for folks to be able to work for everyone.”And that is what accessibility is really about, according to Carpenter. “[With more options] I wouldn’t have to take time to go to a voting center somewhere,” Carpenter said. “I’m a busy person; sometimes I travel a lot so I wouldn’t have to make sure to carve out time … I could just vote at home [at] 9:00 on a Saturday night like anyone else can.”

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