Letter to the Denver Post Editor

To the Editor:

My name is Scott LaBarre, and I serve as the president of the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado. I was gratified to see the Associated Press story in Monday's Denver Post, "Blind voters fear loss of privacy with shift to mail voting"." The article reports that because of the coronavirus pandemic, states are moving quickly to implement voting by mail so that voters who are concerned about voting in person in light of the coronavirus pandemic can request an absentee ballot. It goes on to say that for blind voters, the printed absentee ballot cannot be filled out without assistance from someone who can see the print and that this is a step backwards from using accessible systems at the polls to mark a ballot. The article mentions legal actions filed in Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania by the National Federation of the Blind along with other organizations leading to agreements by the three states to make electronic ballots available during the primaries to voters with disabilities.

Colorado has been a vote-by-mail state since 2014. Last year, the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado went to the Legislature with a proposal that ultimately became SB19-202 - Voting Rights for Voters with Disabilities, signed by Governor Polis on May 28, 2019. SB19-202 provides for an accessible online alternative to this state's all-mail ballot system. The Secretary of State's office quickly moved to implement this bill, and to its credit, sought and was open to constructive input from the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado before launching its accessible online voting tool  in the November, 2019 local elections. Thus, Coloradans with disabilities can now vote independently and privately at home, just like our nondisabled neighbors.

This was a huge step forward for accessible and equal voting, even before social distancing concerns were on the horizon. But the good news stops there.

Because of Colorado's requirement for a paper ballot, Colorado voters with disabilities must print out their ballot and mail it in. Military voters and overseas voters who use essentially the same system are able to submit by electronic means. Though blind and other voters with disabilities can now mark an electronic ballot on a laptop or even a smart phone, few of us in 2020 have a printer , meaning that the new accessible voting system was significantly underused in last November's election and in the March Presidential Primary. Colorado voters with disabilities are faced with similar choices as those described in the AP article--find a public printer somewhere (where our votes risk being exposed to others), go to a polling center with the risks inherent in any public venue, have a friend or family member read and mark our ballots, or not to vote at all. Remember, many people with disabilities fall into the "vulnerable" category because of either a primary or secondary condition.

What Colorado voters with disabilities need, like military and overseas voters, is to be able to submit our ballots electronically. We can't do that in the current primary, but we have plenty of time to make it happen by November's General election and to make this a permanent change in the 2021 Legislative Session

We aren't asking that something new be created out of whole cloth. The rest of the system is already in place, tested and being used. All we ask is access.

Sincerely,

Scott LaBarre, President

National Federation of the Blind of Colorado