(KRON) — While many have benefitted from California’s Vote-By-Mail program, a Berkeley non-profit filed a lawsuit on Thursday alleging that the program excludes and discriminates against blind voters.
The lawsuit was filed on Thursday by Disability Rights Advocates, a Berkeley-based non-profit. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit were several individuals with visual impairments who normally vote either by mail with assistance or at in-person voting locations using accessible voting machines.
Disability Rights Advocates, along with the plaintiffs, allege that California’s Vote-By-Mail program discriminates against blind individuals because it requires them to rely on an assistant to return their ballots, compromising the privacy and independence of their votes—a hallmark of voting in the United States.
“The ability to vote independently should be a guaranteed right for all voters,” said Christopher Gray, a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “However, because California fails to employ a fully accessible system of voting, this is not a guarantee for blind voters and others with print disabilities like me who must forgo their independence and privacy when engaging in a fundamental part of the democratic process—voting.”
Although certain voters with print disabilities who have access to the required technology may receive, read, and mark their ballots independently using their county’s remote accessible vote-by-mail (“RAVBM”) system, there currently is no option in California for them to privately and independently return their ballots.
Some of the plaintiffs have had to miss out on the benefits of the Vote-by-Mail Program and instead have voted at an in-person voting location. Despite the additional burdens of needing to take time off work or paying for transportation, the lawsuit says that is currently the only voting method that allows them to vote privately and independently.
To comply with the lawsuit, plaintiffs are asking California to provide voters with print disabilities with an accessible electronic method for returning their vote-by-mail ballots (“e-return”). Fortunately, California already has a system in place for that method: ballot return by fax. Fax-based ballot returns are already available to certain California military and overseas voters.
According to the lawsuit, all of the individual plaintiffs have assistive technology that would enable them to return their ballots privately and independently via fax transmission for the November 5 general election.
We receive complaints to our voting hotline from voters with print disabilities every major election asking why they are not able to return their ballot electronically, like their counterparts in other states can. We filed the complaint to end the discrimination resulting from what amounts to a requirement that voters with print disabilities waive their right to vote privately and independently in order use the popular Vote-by-Mail Program. In order to ensure that the November 5, 2024, Presidential General Election is more accessible to voters with print disabilities, we are seeking only the minimum level of accessible ballot return.
Fred Nisen, Managing Attorney, Disability Rights California
A hearing is scheduled for May 20, 2024, at 9:30 am in the courtroom of the Hon. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim, located in San Francisco Courthouse
