Planning to Vote Today (in the US)?
Lines are long today, at least at my polling station and at the polling stations that my boss drove by when coming into work this morning. Plan on the possibility that you may need to be in line outside the building for 20, 30 minutes or more and dress appropriately for the weather in your area.
As a deaf person, I ran into staff two years ago who didn’t really accommodate my communication access needs and were hard to lipread. So I planned ahead by writing down a couple of things I might need to say, like, “I’m deaf, I will find it easier to understand if you please write,” and a separate message saying, “Just because you may be able to understand me easily does not mean that I can lipread you, please write.” (Because a lot of hearing non-disabled people seem to have this idea stuck in their heads that you can tell how well a person can understand you based on how well you understand them. Um, no, that’s not how it works. Many people who are deaf, or hard of hearing, or have audio processing disorder may find it harder to understand you than you do to understand them. I know some deaf people who have perfect speech, due to being deafened later in life, who have given up actually using their speech skills because so many hearing people refuse to grasp this point.)
Fortunately I didn’t really need it this time, I managed to lip read enough to get by, partly due to already knowing the overall process after having voted so many times in my life. But being prepared for the possibility did make me feel a bit better.
For people who don’t have as much experience with voting, I’ll describe how the process worked at my polling station. Just bear in mind that different states and different polling stations may have somewhat different processes.
First I had to stand in line just to get into the building. If it is just a local election then lines may not be so long, but presidential elections tend to be heavily attended, and I’m guessing voter turn out is high this year.
After I got to the front, there were several people seated behind a table to help each voter as they got in. In some polling stations, they might have different tables you need to go to based on where your last name falls into the alphabet, but not at mine. I showed my state ID to the worker. Not all polling stations require this, but even if it is not required then the process may still go a little faster if you do, because then it will be a bit faster for them to find your name in their computer system. (I can remember when they had to look up your name on a paper list. Yes, I’m old now! :-) ) They then gave me a slip of paper with my name on it and sent me to the next table to actually pick up my ballot. At the next table, they took my slip of paper and tossed it into a box and then gave me a ballot.
I had a moment of confusion when I saw a line and thought it was a line to get to one of the voting booths. But no, I was able to take the ballot to a voting booth as soon as I got the ballot. At my polling station, we had paper ballots with bubbles. You select the bubble next to the candidate you want and fill it in completely dark. At my location, this needed to be done with either black or blue ink (because that’s what the machine is programmed to see and count). Each voting booth had at least one pen, some had multiple pens! I used my own just because I had it ready (in case I needed to ask someone to write). At some polling stations, you might be able to vote by digital ballot or other means.
After I voted, I got confused again because it looked like there were two lines to wait in for submitting the ballot. Nope, it turned out to be all one line that was wrapped around the room twice. A staff person showed me where the end of the line was, and it was another few minutes of waiting, slowly going all around the room and back, before I could submit my ballot. A staff person showed me how to get the ballot into the machine.
If you are a person with disabilities, then learn about your right to vote and your right to an accessible voting experience here:
http://www.aapd.com/rev-up-the-disability-vote/
If you run into any problems while trying to vote, then go to the link above. Some “hotlines” are listed that you can use to report problems. Hotlines are available in several languages aside from English. Unfortunately, I don’t see an ASL (American Sign Language) video phone hotline listed for this year. That’s something that really should be created for future elections.