I recently learned of an April article that appeared in the paper announcing Otsego County’s Democratic Committee’s Platform. Among its approved planks is, "To preserve the integrity of one person, one vote, oppose the Help America Vote Act Of 2002 (HAVA) and ban electronic software from any use in voting, recording, and tabulating in local and New York state elections, in favor of the present system of mechanical voting machines."
I’ve an even better idea. Why don’t we do away with voting machines altogether and we can all verbally inform a Democratic and Republican poll worker who we want to vote for and they can cast our vote for us. That way we don’t need machines, expensive or otherwise, and we don’t need any federal HAVA implemented.
Silly you think? Absurd? Well I say, "Why not?" I’ve been forced to vote that way my entire life. So if it’s good enough for me, why isn’t it good enough for everyone else?
You see, I’m blind. I am also a tax-paying citizen of this country who works, is married, owns his own home, pays property taxes and has never been arrested.
Yet I can’t vote! Not like you do, anyway. I have to go into the voting booth with my wife and let her vote for me, hope she supports who I’m voting for because I’ll never really know which lever she selected. Or I can have two strangers go into the booth with me, tell them what levers to select. Meanwhile, everyone else waiting in line can also hear who I’m voting for.
The Help America Vote Act mandates voting be accessible to people with disabilities. The Otsego County Democratic Committee would have that right continue to be denied me and thousands of New Yorkers like me. Shame on them.
Charles Reichardt, Unadilla
Reichardt is systems advocate for The Catskill Center for , ndependence, which services Delaware, Otsego and Schoharie counties.