HPOD Events
Disability Rights and Access to the Ballot
Safeguarding all persons with disabilities' full and effective political participation
Each election, persons with disabilities must navigate a maze of obstacles to cast their ballots, and disability cause lawyers around the world have a critical role in upholding disability rights protections.
HPOD is co-hosting a lunch panel event on disability rights and access to the ballot on October 31, 2024, from 12:15 to 1:30 PM in the Singer Classroom (WCC B010), together with the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, the Harvard Disabled Law Students Association, and the Equal Democracy Project at HLS.
Professor Michael Ashley Stein, HPOD's co-founder and Executive Director, will moderate this timely discussion featuring panelists Tatum A. Pritchard, Director of Litigation at the Disability Law Center; Rebecca Williford, President & CEO of Disability Rights Advocates; and Elizabeth Westfall, Deputy Chief of the DOJ Civil Rights Division, Disability Rights Section.
Each election cycle, persons with disabilities must navigate a maze of obstacles to cast their ballots, from barriers to accessing electronic ballots, to paper absentee ballots and election information. Following the 2020 general election, many states enacted restrictive measures that infringe on voters with disabilities' right to assistance in casting their vote. For example, in 2021 Texas passed Senate Bill 1 (S.B. 1), which prevented voter assistants from providing certain kinds of support, such as answering a voter’s questions, explaining the voting process, or paraphrasing complex language. The Western District of Texas later struck down these provisions for violating the federal Voting Rights Act, as well as the terms of a 2018 injunction. Earlier this month, the Western District ruled on S.B. 1 again, enjoining Texas from enforcing additional provisions that restrict voters with disabilities' ballot access and expose voter assistants to criminal liability. The continuing fight against state voting restrictions only underscores the critical need for vigilance by disability rights advocates to uphold core voting protections.
Such barriers to political participation are only compounded by restrictions on ballot access for persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities subject to guardianship orders. As Professor Stein and HPOD's Director of Advocacy Initiatives, Hezzy Smith, wrote together with HPOD Associate János Fiala-Butora, protections against the disenfranchisement of voters with disabilities subject to guardianship orders have eroded in recent European Court of Human Rights cases, as well as other forms of ballot access protections. Thus, disability cause lawyers have a primary role to play in safeguarding all persons with disabilities' full and effective political participation both in the United States and abroad.
Lunch will be provided.
