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By Christine Zachmeyer Almost every day in New York one can find an article in local newspapers, on the radio or on television about the Help America Vote Act and the dismal example the state has set concerning its implementation. Many people, however, may be surprised to learn that advocates have been fighting for a very long time for the right of those with disabilities to be able to vote at their local polling places alongside their families, friends and neighbors. Electoral discrimination isn’t new in this country. Women, people of color, and even those who did not own property have been prevented from voting at one time or another. The Catskill Center for Independence, located outside the city of Oneonta, first examined this issue in 1992. It was a statement by then-Governor Mario Cuomo that first drew the attention of many to the issue. Cuomo said that more than 90% of New York state’s polling places were accessible to the "handicapped." This writer and others CCFI staff members looked at each other in amazement at the implication of this declaration. After comparing notes, it was discovered that most of the local polling places were, in fact, inaccessible, which made the claim a bit difficult to believe. The center responded by having a staff person contact the New York State Board of Elections (NYSBOE) and ask if the governor had, indeed, made that claim. The board confirmed the governor’s statement and then provided the center with a list of all the counties in New York state, the total number of polling places and the number of accessible polling locations. According to those figures, most of the counties reported that between 92% and 97% of their polling places were physically accessible. Only a few counties reported access lower than 90%, most of those by just a few percentage points. Our attention was drawn to the reported statistics for the counties served by the center at that time: Delaware, Otsego and Schoharie. According to the NYSBOE, more than 90% of the polling places in each of the counties (93-95%) were physically accessible to individuals with disabilities. We decided to see for ourselves by visiting every polling place in the three-county area and conducting on-site assessments using accessibility standards enforceable at the time. Little did we know then that this decision would shape such a large part of the center’s future for many years to come. It turned out to be a lot more difficult to accomplish our task than we initially expected. Many polling sites in this predominantly rural area of New York were not open to the public on a regular basis. In fact, some sites were not much more than a shack, literally in the middle of a field, and were open only on election and primary days, such as the site in Worcester. One polling site in New Kingston turned out to be in a homeowner’s garage. It took considerable time and effort to get to all the polling places. In some cases, arrangements had to be made to pick up and then return a key to get inside, or to meet someone outside who would provide access. Calling from a cell phone to let someone know a staff member was waiting wasn’t an option, much to our surprise, because there were no towers in the area. We finally completed our mission and went back to the office to tabulate our results. Needless to say, our results were quite different from those reported. Instead of finding that more than 90% of the polling places were accessible, we learned that 93% were not. Even we were shocked by those results. Now we were on a quest. Surely, we thought, all we had to do was show state officials our findings to remedy the situation. Not exactly. We submitted survey reports, based on our statistics, to every municipality in the three-county region, each county’s board of elections office, and the NYSBOE. We then placed follow-up calls, initially with the local municipalities and subsequently with the local boards of elections, as well as the state. No one showed interest in our tale, except one attorney, the director of personnel in one of the counties, who contacted the center and wanted to know what his county needed to do to fix the problem. The center worked with him for a couple of years, while municipalities and other county officials resisted. The county personnel director eventually lost his job. Since 1992, the center had worked with various local, county and state officials to deal with the inaccessible polling places to no avail. Finally, in 1998, the center contacted the NYS Office of the Attorney General Civil Rights Division. Although interested in the center’s reports, officials there were skeptical that results obtained in 1992 would have any validity in 1998. So, the center staff once again surveyed every polling place in the three-county area and discovered that the state attorney general’s office was right: The 1998 results were different from those of 1992. In 1992, 7% of the polling places we surveyed were accessible; in 1998, only 5% were. So despite our six-year effort to effect improvements, the number of polling places in the three-county area that were physically accessible had decreased by 2%. Ruti Bell, joined later by Carrie Cohen, became the first attorneys from state Office of the Attorney General to work with the Catskill Center for Independence. Initially, both attorneys assumed that once the counties received a letter from their office, they would fall into line and take care of their inaccessible polling places. That, however, was not the case. Having received a letter from the AG’s office, each of the county attorneys promised that, although some polling places might have been inaccessible before, that was no longer true, and they invited a representative from the attorney general’s office to see for themselves. Cohen accepted their invitation and, along with this writer and Richard Zachmeyer, the then-executive director of the CCFI, visited every polling place in Delaware, Otsego and Schoharie counties. Cohen’s visit, however, only confirmed the validity of the results the center had provided to the AG’s office. Some effort had been made at a few of the polling places in a small number of municipalities to increase a site’s accessibility. For instance, at a site that had about a ¾" lip at its entry door, someone put down "cold tar" in an effort to reduce the elevation. Unfortunately, "cold tar" is not a firm, stable surface, and a visitor was able to etch her initials in it with the heel of her shoe. Despite the evidence, only Otsego County admitted its deficiencies and signed a consent decree aimed at making all its polling places accessible. After an exchange of letters, Cohen and Bell asked the Schoharie and Delaware county attorneys to meet with them in an effort to avoid litigation. The meeting was scheduled; the time was set. Cohen and Bell were joined by this writer, the Catskill Center’s Zachmeyer and several representatives from Delaware County. No one from Schoharie County showed up or even declined the invitation. At the meeting, Delaware County did little to resolve the situation. Instead, county officials presented letters from individuals representing polling sites in their respective communities. There were letters from town and village clerks, supervisors and mayors. One official said it was "patently ridiculous" to expect someone in a wheelchair to arrive at the polling site alone. He believed that a polling place didn’t need to be accessible because there would always be someone there to assist the handicapped voter. A clergyman who ran a church also used as a polling site had a beautifully striped parking lot but no designated accessible parking spaces. He wrote that it would be "sacrilege" to paint blue lines in his parking lot in order to properly designate accessible parking. Subsequently, the NYS Attorney General’s office, along with the CCFI, filed a lawsuit in federal court against Delaware, Schoharie and Otsego counties to provide accessible polling sites. Otsego County immediately filed a consent decree. The other counties argued that there weren’t any disabled voters living in their communities; if there were, they claimed, they would assist them. In February 2000, Federal District Court Judge Howard Munson approved the consent decree submitted by Otsego County and ordered Delaware and Schoharie counties to make whatever changes necessary to make their polling places accessible, without exception. Election Day 2000 saw every polling place in Delaware, Otsego and Schoharie counties provide access to voters with disabilities for the first time. On that same day, Richard Zachmeyer passed away. ****** Christine Zachmeyer is the Executive Director of the Catskill Center for Independence, in Oneonta, NY |
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