Visually impaired Washingtonians face unique obstacles to voting

The options

Voters with needs for ballot accessibility have a couple of options. King County provides an online ballot-marking option for voters with vision impairments to cast their ballot privately, according to the county website. Once completed, the voter must print their own ballot and return it by mail, use a ballot drop box, or visit a Vote Center. 

Carpenter points out how few people, including disabled people, own a printer anymore, and traveling to a voting center might not be realistic. 

“[Voting centers] are only usually open on weekdays during business hours. So for anyone who works, that’s not feasible,” Carpenter said. 

Those who can travel to a voting center can vote on an Accessible Voting Unit, designed to enable people with seeing disabilities and partial hearing disabilities to vote independently. Those who are deafblind could require a co-navigator, usually hearing and seeing, to help fill a disabled person’s ballot, according to Ryan Bondroff, who is deafblind and a vocational rehab counselor based in the SeaTac area. 

“The co-navigator reads each question, and the [deafblind] person answers by selecting a choice. Then their co-navigator writes or fills the circle box on that selected item. It can be a very tedious and time-consuming task,” Bondroff said. 

Jamal Mazrui, who is blind and has hired a co-navigator in the past, says having one dampers his voting experience in multiple ways. 

“It does mean less independence because then my vote isn’t a private experience. And depending on the politics of the person who’s assisting me, there can be some awkwardness,” Mazrui said. 

Mazrui, among many with seeing and hearing impairment, voted in person Oct. 19 at an event hosted by the Seattle Public Library. King County Elections partnered with the National Federation of the Blind of Washington to provide one-time weekend voting access for people with disabilities prior to election weekend. 

The King County Elections office relies heavily on “trusty messengers” to spread the word about events such as the one on Oct. 19, according to Naheed Aaftaab, language access and community outreach supervisor at King County Elections. 

“We try to do things proactively, but we don’t always get it right. Often we do our work through invitation. […] So we rely a lot on [the] community reaching out to us to tell us what they need,” Aaftaab said. 

Kendall LeVan Hodson, chief of staff at King County Elections, helped manage the Oct. 19 event, recognizing that accessible voting units are not perfect, yet an important stride forward for independent voting.

“Democracy is really important, and it’s the time of year where people really feel that, so seeing them get to come in and cast an independent ballot and feel like they have their voice heard … it’s something that always fills my cup,” Hodson said. 

The next weekend when accessible voting units will be available will be the weekend of Nov. 2, right before the election, according to Aaftaab and Hodson. 

For Mazrui, accessibility issues go beyond casting a vote; they prevent him from exercising his full democratic right to participate in electoral campaigns. 
 

Other political limitations

“Not being able to do things like phone banks … has dampened [my independence] because I really wanted to be able to participate in that way as well, and I haven’t found an accessible way to do that,” Mazrui said. 

Receiving fair, unbiased candidate information is another key factor for any voter looking to make a decision on whom to support. Various organizations for the disabled foster opportunities for community members to access information in their preferred method of communication, according to Bondroff. The Lighthouse for the Blind, Inc., used to include election information as part of their community classes, according to Bondroff, but that was 10 years ago.