Letter to Supervisors of Election in Florida Regarding Obligations Toward Voters with Disabilities

Note: I sent the same letter, by email,to each of the 67 Supervisors of Election in Florida. --Marc

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Supervisor of Elections - Miami-Dade County

Dear Supervisor of Elections:

I am an attorney in Florida, and I am writing to ask you to ensure that your staff allows people with disabilities to move ahead of others in lines to vote, as required by title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. In some communities in Florida, reports have already come to my attention that voters with disabilities have been forced to wait in long lines, resulting in some voters with disabilities leaving without voting, in violation of their federal civil rights. Many people with disabilities cannot endure the heat, or, as a result of diuretics and other medicines, must use the bathroom more frequently than other voters. Title II of the ADA requires state and local governments to engage in reasonable modifications of policies so as to avoid discrimination on the basis of disability, including allowing voters with disabilities to advance in line ahead of voters without disabilities. Just as restaurants that are prohibited by state law from admitting animals are required by the ADA to admit people with disabilities accompanied by a service animal, as a reasonable modification of policy, so too must Supervisors of Elections modify the policy concerning a voter’s place in line to allow a person with a disability to not wait in line, and advance to the front of the line, absent proof that such a modification would result in an undue financial or administrative burden.
Many counties throughout the United States have recognized the reasonableness of this policy modification and trained their staff to assist voters with disabilities to move to the front of the line to vote. I urge you to speak to your staff to ensure that they do so as well.
By way of background, I served as a Senior Trial Attorney at the Justice Department from 1992-2005, in the Disability Rights Section of the Civil Rights Division, in Washington, D.C. In that capacity, I was responsible for nationwide enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act on behalf of the United States. I am confident that your office seeks to ensure access to the right to vote for all of your county’s citizens, including those with disabilities, and I respectfully urge you to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that your staff understands their legal obligations under the ADA.
Please feel free to contact me at 305-896-3000 or by email at mdubin@pobox.com if I can be of any assistance.
Thank you.




Please visit www.AmericansWithDisabilitiesVote.org