As voters and as candidates, disabled people face physical barriers and discrimination that reflect the ableism pervasive in our society. For example, recent sneers about John Fetterman’s use of closed captioning when interviewed by reporters and at a debate highlights the assumption that ease of speech indicates depth of knowledge and mental clarity.
The media’s framing of Fetterman’s use of CC and the demeaning commentary from deplorable politicians affects more than this election—it can worsen discrimination and abuse of disabled people, reports Buzzfeed News, discussing a previous NBC News interview in which Fetterman used CC.
“I was stunned to see how the coverage of his use of captions was so riddled with ableism,” said Maria Town, the president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities. “The interview was deeply upsetting to see.”
Disability activist Charis Hill told BuzzFeed News they were so upset at Burns’s questions and the editors’ framing of Fetterman’s responses — leaving in moments of silence that showed Fetterman reading, for example — that they couldn’t finish watching the interview. Hill called on NBC to apologize for “the overt discrimination they just put on air.”
“The way Burns handled that interview will only worsen attitudes and violence towards disabled people in a time when virtual accommodations are being removed left and right after they were implemented overnight in 2020,” Hill said.
As for voting itself, staircases are merely the most obvious barrier. Republicans have imposed a range of other limitations preventing many disabled people from casting their ballots: banning curbside voting, mandating in-person voting, restricting how ballots may be returned, limiting types of assistance allowable, and requiring paper ballots.
Sometimes, polling places claim to be accessible, but when actually attempting to access the building, disabled voters find narrow doorways or inadequate parking. Mail-in ballots are not a panacea for disabled access because not everyone can use a pen due to vision or coordination disabilities. The right to vote also can be obstructed before election day by requirements involved in registering to vote, such as official IDs and the expenses and multiple visits to offices associated with obtaining a non-driver’s license ID.
For me, voting has been easy. I became a permanent absentee voter decades ago because my autumn work schedule conflicted with being home on election day—it’s even easier with more options now.
In early October this year, I received a postcard from my county’s Registrar of Voters telling me to expect my ballot in the mail in 10 days. My ballot arrived mid-October and a week later I received a postcard telling me it had been sent.
Included with my ballot was information about alternative voting options: in-person (including curbside), using personal assistive tech (Remote Accessible Voting, especially useful for people who cannot use paper ballots nor personally show up at polling sites), and where to turn in my paper ballot (drive up drop boxes, no-stamp-needed mail-in, or at polling sites). I get a text notification when my ballot is received by the county and another when my ballot is counted or if it cannot be counted so I have time to use an alternative voting method.
I’m not special—every voter in California has these options since universal mail-in ballots were implemented during the pandemic. But even before that, absentee voting was open to everyone upon request, no special permit or medical reason required.
In late January, a judge in Wisconsin ruled that there were just two ways someone in the state could return a mail-in ballot: they could either place it in the mail or return it to their local clerk in person. [...]
Nearly 18 million Americans with disabilities voted in the 2020 election, an increase of six points from 2016, according to a recent study from Rutgers University. Voters with disabilities were nearly twice as likely to report some difficulty casting a ballot as voters without a disability in 2020. A provision of the Voting Rights Act says “any voter who requires assistance to vote by reason of blindness, disability, or inability to read or write may be given assistance by a person of the voter’s choice, other than the voter’s employer or agent of that employer or officer or agent of the voter’s union.”
In Alabama, Republicans banned curbside voting, a practice used by voters who cannot enter the polling place because of a disability. A new Texas law limited what assistance voters could get at the polls and required those who provided assistance to swear an oath. In Florida, a new law makes it harder to request a mail ballot and it is now illegal to return more than two ballots that do not belong to themselves or a family.
Other unique obstacles are two ideological beliefs about who should be eligible to vote: “One is the notion that disabled people shouldn’t be allowed to vote. The other is the idea that voting processes should be at least somewhat difficult and exacting, as a way of ensuring that only the most informed and committed citizens vote. ‘This belief hides a very pernicious idea of who deserves to vote,’ says (Lilian Aluri, #RevUp Voting Campaign Coordinator at the American Association of People with Disabilities ), ‘and is rooted in barely masked racism and ableism.’”
The debate not only put Fetterman’s cognitive challenges and need for accommodation on full public display, say disability advocates, but it revealed the ableism inherent in the electoral process and the added scrutiny that candidates with disabilities receive compared with their non-disabled counterparts. [...]
An analysis of more than 36,000 politicians between 2013 to 2017 found that while the number of elected officials with disabilities has gone up, they are still underrepresented in politics — making up 12 percent of politicians on the local level and only about six percent of politicians at the state and federal level. By comparison, the federal estimates suggest that about 26 percent of U.S. adults have a disability. [...]
The debate format also involved rapid-fire questions and 15- and 30-second response times that, at times, seemed difficult for Fetterman to manage. On Twitter, a number of people commented that watching the debate made them more aware of how the debate process is skewed in favor of people who don’t have disabilities. [...]
“Extra time is an extremely common disability accommodation,” tweeted Sara Luterman, a journalist for the 19th who is autistic. “The debate was basically what happens when disability isn’t adequately accommodated. I do not think it was an accurate or fair reflection on Fetterman’s fitness for office.”
While neurological experts said they could not offer a specific diagnosis about Fetterman’s health, they noted that closed captions are a common tool for people with auditory processing or hearing issues, conditions which have nothing to do with overall intelligence.
“This is not an issue of intelligence, it’s not an issue of cognition, but unfortunately how we get information in and out tends to impact how people perceive that,” said Brooke Hatfield, an associate director for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
