Forum Post: Emancipating the Blind

In 2008 I made the US National Voter Registration form to be accessible to the blind and the visually impaired and it was presented to the Elections Assistance Commission by the then Vice President of the American Association of People with Disabilities. Also my progress was monitored by the Voting Rights Division of the ACLU. I had sent the form to the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) in August of 2008 and 19 days later they came out with a form that was only partially accessible, requiring the blind to buy a program that costs $1200 to be able to register to vote, well partially as it only gave partial access. Before I pointed this out, the form was completely inaccessible. That is a poll tax on the blind, a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

The form requires the blind to draw a map of where they live on the back of the form. Does anyone here see the flaw in the plan? The Elections Officer in the State of Arkansas told me over the phone that they never had any complaints. Well duh, if the blind cannot access it, they cannot tell you what is wrong with the form. The Elections Officer of the State of Washington wrote that the state was not required to make voter registration accessible to the blind. They were required to do this under 7 civil rights laws passed since 1965!

The blind and visually impaired number about 30 million people, 19 million people have been diagnosed with eye diseases that lead to blindness and the rest are either fully blind (about 8 million americans) or are of old age.

Their unemployment rate is 70% at the best of times and they cannot afford the programs necessary to access information.

The EAC was created by the Help America Vote Act in 2002 and they were mandated by Congress to make the Voter Registration forms accessible to the blind. They didn't get around to it until 19 days after I contacted them and that was 6 years after they were created. Oh sure they made voting machines accessible but if you are not registered to vote, you cannot vote.

The main problem is that everything is custom made these days with open source software, Government IT professionals have big budgets to make content accessible. But I made it so ordinary people can make this content, people who are not specially trained and so this hits the government officials right in the pocket book. They are in charge of their IT budgets and only they can make content accessible according to their own rules, so it doesn't get done. Oh sure they have meetings and seminars but they never get around to actually doing something about it.

Accessibility is a budgetary means of padding the IT budget, but my process enables everyone to read the content so this actually cuts down on administrative costs.

In 2007-2008 I was in contact with the elections officials in the State of Texas and they spent a fortune flying around the state to have meetings and to try to make the voter registration form accessible to the blind. I made the form in 4 hours. They refused to use it.

I have since improved the process and I can make the voter registration form accessible to the blind who can use free software to access all of the content in 44 languages worldwide. Do you know anyone who would be interested in emancipating the blind and visually impaired, one of the largest demographic groups in the US?