Texans with disabilities fear voting will get harder for them as special session on GOP restrictions

[TexasTowelie]

by Alexa Ura, Texas Tribune


It took Nancy Crowther three hours, four public bus rides and an impressive amount of gumption to make sure her vote counted in the 2020 election. She’s hoping Texas lawmakers don’t make it even harder the next time.

With Texas Republicans determined to enact additional voting restrictions in the upcoming special legislative session, much of the uproar has focused on changes that could make it harder for people of color to cast ballots. Less attention has fallen on another group of voters bracing for what could happen to them under the GOP’s renewed push to further tighten the state’s voting procedures — people with disabilities, for whom the voting process is already lined with potential obstacles.

Among them are people like Crowther, a 64-year-old retiree, who could have been shut out from voting last November had it not been for her own tenacious determination. Immunocompromised because of a neuromuscular disease, Crowther chose to forgo her usual trip to a nearby polling place and instead turned to mail-in voting in hopes of safeguarding her health during the pandemic. But as Election Day neared — and after experiencing interruptions in her mail service — she began to worry her ballot wouldn’t make it back to the county in time.

A former transit employee who worked on improving accessibility on public transportation, she pulled up the city bus schedule and started mapping the distance between her home in South Austin and the Travis County elections office 9 miles away. Under Texas law, she couldn’t ask someone else to return her ballot, so Crowther, who uses a wheelchair, had to make the trip herself.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/05/texas-voting-disability/