Voting Access for Disabled & Long-Term Care Voters: Assessments

Voting is fundamental to our democracy and federal law generally requires polling places to be accessible to all eligible voters, including those with disabilities and the elderly. However, during the 2000 federal election, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that only 16 percent of polling places had no potential impediments to voting access for people with disabilities. To address these and other issues, Congress enacted the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), which required each polling place to have an accessible voting system by 2006. Congress asked the GAO to reassess voting access on Election Day 2008, and also to study voter accessibility at long-term care facilities. This book examines the progress made from 2000 to 2008 to improve voter accessibility in polling places, including relevancy to long-term care facilities and the steps the Department of Justice has taken to enforce HAVA voting access provisions.