Milwaukee officials highlight efforts to make voting accessible to people with disabilities

Ahead of the November election, Milwaukee officials are highlighting the steps they're taking to make voting accessible — particularly for people with disabilities whose access to absentee voting has been the subject of recent litigation.

"Now more than ever it is extremely important that voters with disabilities be aware of the accessibility of elections but also changing election laws," Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Claire Woodall-Vogg said during a press conference at Independence First.

Because of Wisconsin's decentralized election system, clerks in recent months have had to interpret procedures around such issues as whether voters can have help returning their absentee ballots, she said.

However, Woodall-Vogg said that every polling place in the city, including early voting locations, is accessible to voters with disabilities. That includes through curbside voting for those who cannot easily get out of their vehicles to come into the polling place and the use of accessible voting machines that allow voters to cast their ballots independently and privately.

In a demonstration of that equipment on Monday, Woodall-Vogg said the ExpressVote machines print ballots that reflect voters' selections and are then fed into the regular voting machines.

Mayor Cavalier Johnson said the city would also be including a "widget" on many city webpages that allows voters to check their registration statuses in addition to providing early voting sites ahead of the Nov. 8 election.

Door-to-door canvassing funded by the "private sector" will also be taking place to encourage residents to vote in November, he said.

Johnson's spokesman said the "Milwaukee Votes 2022" group that Johnson referenced as conducting the canvassing is a privately funded group.

"The association with 'Milwaukee Votes 2022' is limited to the mayor voicing support for the work — which includes door-to-door canvassing — to encourage all eligible voters to vote in upcoming elections," his spokesman, Jeff Fleming, said in an email.

City officials' comments came as advocates and voters with disabilities praised a federal judge's recent ruling that people with disabilities that prevent them from personally returning their ballots may receive assistance.

Disabled voters sued over Supreme Court ruling

Four Wisconsin voters sued in July after the state Supreme Court's conservative majority ruled that voters could not give absentee ballots to someone else to submit to a clerk's office. It did not bar others from dropping absentee ballots in the mailbox for voters. The justices also ruled that state law does not permit unstaffed absentee ballot drop boxes.

"We have just had a really dark chapter in our state, where the right to ballot return assistance has been restricted by a lawsuit ... that undercut the protections in federal law that allow voters with disabilities to have the right to ballot return assistance," said Barbara Beckert, director of external advocacy at Disability Rights Wisconsin. 

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Then in late August, U.S. District Judge James Peterson ruled the federal Voting Rights Act allows voters with disabilities to have friends or family return their ballots despite the state Supreme Court decision.

Martha Chambers of Milwaukee, who is paralyzed from the neck down, and Scott Luber of Mequon, who has muscular dystrophy, were two of the four Wisconsin voters who had sued.

On Monday, they spoke to the importance of voting access.

Luber said he did not vote in the two spring elections this year because he was afraid he would be breaking the law by submitting his absentee ballot.

"It was troubling from the standpoint, like do I vote, don't I vote?" he said.

Peterson's ruling assured the federal right to vote and have assistance, Luber said. 

Contact Alison Dirr at 414-224-2383 or adirr@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter @AlisonDirr.