From the Houston Chronicle:
“A disability rights group filed a class-action lawsuit against Harris County Tuesday alleging its mail-in voting process is inaccessible for visually impaired voters or those with “print disabilties [sic].”
An attorney with Disability Rights Texas sued both the county and County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth in federal court on behalf of the National Federation of the Blind of Texas and four disabled voters. The residents, all of whom are either visually impaired or otherwise incapable of filling out a paper ballot, argued the county’s refusal to offer an electronic alternative forced them to depend on caretakers and loved ones to read and fill out their mail-in ballots.
… ‘If you are lucky enough to live with somebody who you trust and you know is reading the ballot exactly as it’s written or they are marking it in exactly the way that you direct them, that’s great. But there’s never a 100% guarantee – people make mistakes,’ said Sashi Nisankarao, a Disability Rights Texas attorney representing the plaintiffs. ‘But people living in an assisted living facility or a nursing home often have to count on [a] stranger. Not only to fill out your ballot correctly, but also to get it to the post office on time.’
…Plaintiffs in the case are not asking to vote electronically – Nisankarao said their ballots would still have to be physically delivered to polling locations in-person or by mail. The plaintiffs Nisankarao is representing are simply asking for a method through which they can make their ballot selections free of the judgment, potential mistakes and deliberate obfuscation that could come with having a third party vote on their behalf.”
Read the full story from the Houston Chronicle.