Accessibility - sponsored by Universal Design Newsletter

Polls Still Off-limits to Disabled

By Ruth Padawer
Source: Justice For All listserv 04-18-07

Two in five polling sites in New Jersey were inaccessible to disabled voters over the past three years, a violation of state and federal law, according to a scathing report by the state Department of the Public Advocate.

The draft report, obtained by The Record, follows an investigation that state officials believe is the most sweeping government initiative of its kind in the nation. It involved more than 1,700 inspections through seven major elections, and ultimately blames county officials and the state Attorney General's Office for allowing such inequality to persist.

In all, investigators inspected one-third of the state's 3,500 polling sites, including 174 in Bergen County and 94 in Passaic County. Although compliance improved significantly during the three-year probe, officials concluded that some 600,000 registered voters had been assigned to a polling place with limited accessibility, often lacking ramps, easy-to-open doors or handicapped parking. It's unclear how many people couldn't vote.

"Fourteen years after federal law required all polling places to be accessible, some sites around the state still had barriers," Public Advocate Ronald Chen said in a draft press release obtained by The Record. "That is simply unacceptable.

Chen's study revealed that counties routinely ignored the recommendations of special committees charged with ensuring access. It also found some violators -- particularly in Bergen County -- continued to flout the law, despite repeated warnings from the state Division on Civil Rights.

Ultimately, Chen concluded the state itself has been part of the problem, issuing 366 waivers since 2003 to allow polls to operate despite illegal barriers.

With school elections on Tuesday, some sites are still inaccessible, including four in Hackensack and one in Paterson.

"The schools are old, the churches are old, they're not built for wheelchair access," said Hackensack clerk Debra Heck. "Some towns in South Jersey hold elections at auto dealerships. What are we going to use? Target? Riverside Square mall?"

Paterson, too, has struggled to find sites. Many of its schools are more than 100 years old. In the last two years, the city clerk has moved 16 polls to accessible locations. School 7 is the only one still not accessible.

Since 1984, federal law has required polling places be accessible, a point Congress reiterated in the Americans With Disabilities Act. Nevertheless, when the state Division on Civil Rights began inspections in May 2004, a startling 67 percent of 162 sites flunked, despite claims by county officials that each was accessible.

Some polls were down steep, narrow stairs in buildings with no elevators.

Elsewhere, election workers called firefighters to hoist voters in their wheelchairs up and down steps.

The division began its inspections after one of its employees, Zulima Ferrer, recounted problems with voting from her wheelchair.

A native of Cuba who had looked forward to American participatory democracy, Ferrer -- who now helps to run of the division's Disabilities and Public Accommodations Unit -- was stymied at the Bergen Boulevard School in Ridgefield when election workers told her to go down a dirt hill and in a side door to reach the voting booth. Eventually, the school installed a wheelchair lift, but it didn't always work.

"Voters have a right to vote independently in the polling site, and I'm glad to say that Zulima's site is now accessible," division Director Frank Vespa-Papaleo said.

"They even have a poll worker available to operate the lift."

More often, the barriers were easily surmountable: installing temporary ramps, unlocking gates to wheel- chair lifts or placing voting machines on ground floors.

"In some ways, those were the most egregious because the solutions were so simple," Vespa-Papaleo said.

"Numerous times we saw buildings that had a perfectly adequate wheelchair ramp, but the door at the top of the ramp was locked, and there was no buzzer to alert poll workers that someone needed to get in."

Each time the division found violations, it ordered county officials to address them. The approach had an impact. Not only did reinspections find many problems alleviated, but other officials got the message, too. By June 2005, only 14 percent of 217 newly inspected polling places had deficiencies. Thereafter, the division inspected only sites that had already flunked once.

Some sites were persistently out of compliance. In 2006, reinspections of 21 polling places that had failed three times found 17 still lacking. Among those, five were in Hackensack.

Chen's office found many instances in which county election officials certified sites as "accessible," even though their own Voting Accessibility Advisory Committees -- groups required by law to monitor access -- found barriers. For example, in May 2006, Union County certified all its 189 polling places as accessible, but records of its advisory committee show 58 sites deficient.

For years, the state has issued waivers to county election boards allowing them to operate polls despite their inaccessibility, even though Chen maintained such waivers have been invalid under the ADA was enacted in 1992.

Hudson County was granted 105 waivers in 2004 and 2005. In those years, Passaic was granted 26 waivers and Bergen, four. Every request for a waiver was granted, Chen said.

The attorney general believes that he has the right to issue waivers, spokesman David Wald said.

But pressed by the public advocate, the attorney general has agreed not to grant them in the future.

The public advocate said officials should survey sites every election to ensure access.