From the Muskegon [Michigan] Chronicle:

A special vote drive sponsored by disability rights groups in Muskegon, Michigan, has helped adults with developmental disabilities register to vote.

Among the 23 new voters registered last week was Robert “Randy” Lamos, who will go to the polls on election day for the first time at the age of 61. “Not gonna miss this,” he said. “This is history.”

Even though the U.S. Constitution guarantees every U.S. citizen 18 and older the right to vote, many people like Lamos, who is developmentally disabled and cannot read, have fallen through the cracks during national, state and local elections, said Margaret O’Toole, executive director of Arc/Muskegon.

Worse, she said, they’ve been ignored by the population at large. People with developmental disabilities make up 2 percent of the U.S. population — a sizable voting bloc, she said.

“If you think about it, people with developmental disabilities probably have the most at stake in voting booths,” O’Toole said. “Look at their issues: access to services, employment, transportation, maintaining their rights.”

The new voters will cast their ballots with the help of an AutoMARK terminal, a specially designed and adapted voting machine for people with a variety of disabilities — as dictated by the mandates of the Help America Vote Act.

The voter registration drive was organized by Arc/Muskegon and the Regional Interagency Consumer Committee.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 4:00 am and is filed under civil rights, NOT2BEMISSED, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.