Resources on Voting with a Disability (Maine & US)

by Sharon Wachsler

Support Voting Rights of Disabled People!

"In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

In honor of Election Day, here are links of interest on disability and voting. I hope everyone will vote today, unless you have already voted by absentee ballot.

Disability Justice has a "right to vote" page that is chock full of terrific information! I highly recommend this site. It has several youtubes explaining different voting- and disability-related issues, as well as short blocks of text on these topics, lots of resource links and citations for further reading. A lot of it was surprising and informative to me (and I thought I already knew a lot about this topic, but there is a lot I didn't know!)

Topics of interest include "ADA to Today," about segregation and how people with developmental disabilities are denied the right to vote, "Constitutional Law & Voting Rights," "Complexities of Voting Law" references the Maine constitution specifically, "Voting is a Fundamental Liberty Right," "Stereotypes & Voter's Rights," and a section on "Recent Challenges to State Restrictions on the Voting Rights of People with Developmental Disabilities," including the Maine decision of Doe v. Rowe, and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 See http://disabilityjustice.tpt.org/right-to-vote/

PDF Absentee Voting by People with Disabilities: Promoting Access and Integrity by the American Bar Association.

Nonprofit Vote: National and state-by-state resources for "voting with a disability"

Disability Rights Center of Maine's PDF guide, "People with Disabilities VOTE! How to Vote and Your Rights in the Voting Process." (Here's the DRC Facebook page, too.)

The Rights of Maine Citizens with Intellectual Disabilities (at the Maine Health and Human Services site)

A Guide to the Voting Rights of People with Mental Disabilities ("Vote. It's Your Right," by Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law)

The Americans with Disabilities Act and Other Federal Laws Protecting the Rights of Voters with Disabilities by the Department of Justice