From the [Terre Haute, IN] Tribune-Star:

Voters with disabilities complain that they have been turned away from voting at satellite polling locations in Indiana because the law is unclear about assistance.

According to state law, voters with disabilities are eligible to vote at regular polling locations with assistance from a designated representative or two official judges at a precinct, but the law does not mention satellite voting. Consequently, satellite polling sites have interpreted the law differently, leaving voters frustrated and unable to vote as some polling places turn people away.

Will challenge son’s vote

From the Durham Herald Sun (registration required):

The mother of a man with intellectual disabilities in North Carolina claims an employee of a Durham group home committed voter fraud by taking her 28-year-old son to an early-voting site and telling him how to mark his ballot.

Eileen Murphy said she is planning to challenge her son’s vote, but will not pursue criminal charges. Her son, Adam Folsom, has velo-cardio-facial syndrome and reads at a third-grade level.

Murphy said she had told the group home that she did not want her son to vote. She said her son told her a group home worker had gone with him into the voting booth and told him where to mark his ballot. “They took advantage of him and had him vote the way they wanted him to vote,” she said.

Don Wright, general counsel for the N.C. Board of Elections, said Folsom and others like him are allowed to vote. “There’s no mental capacity requirement for voters or office holders,” he said.

Writing in National Review Online, editor Kathryn Jean Lopez assembles some of the nastier things that have been written lately about Trig Palin (like he must be so glad he wasn’t aborted). She concludes that Trig’s public presence is bringing repressed post-abortion pain into the open, prompting widespread hostility.

Lopez says that getting to know Trig has been good for America. An excerpt:

Before this election, most Americans did not know that upwards of 90 percent of children diagnosed with Down Syndrome are never born. Now we know. Now we can offer more support to our friends and neighbors living with this challenge. Now we can do something to make sure we let people know they have our support before they eliminate a child who can bring them great joy, amidst the challenge.

Mind you, if we elect a president tomorrow who went out of his way in Illinois to oppose protecting newborns from infanticide – what an outrage it would be to give newborns the same right as older infants, then-State Senator Obama said – we will be taking a bit of a step backward, too, in the fight for a culture of life, though I do believe it will have been more out of ignorance than out of acceptance of that radical and barbaric position.

Or so I hope. And Palin, whatever happens tomorrow, has brought with her to the campaign trail a pleasant change – a witness and an awareness and a blessing. God bless her as she raises Trig, in or out of the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.

From KCCI-TV, Des Moines:

An Iowa woman who volunteers for the McCain campaign is challenging the absentee ballot her son cast for Barack Obama, saying her son does not have the mental capacity to make an independent decision.

Brenda Lyddon’s son Christopher Willis, 26, is developmentally delayed and lives in a group home in Grinnell, Iowa. Lyddon says she asked group home staffers not to let her son vote, but that they did anyway. The executive director of the group home said his staffers would never attempt to influence the vote of a resident.

Iowa Secretary of State Michael Mauro told KCCI that if someone expresses an interest in voting, even if he or she is developmentally delayed, that person has a right to vote.

Mauro said if a judge were to rule someone as incompetent to vote, then that person couldn’t vote.

(With video)

Earlier story: Dementia patient allegedly pressured to cast ballot — Des Moines Register

Reports that an 87-year-old Council Bluffs woman was allegedly pressured to vote absentee by a Democratic campaign volunteer raise suspicions that some people who have diminished mental capacity are being targeted, a Republican official said.

From WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio, a feature on a program in Indiana that breaks down obstacles that could otherwise prevent people with disabilities from voting. In the case of Dr. Arun Goel, that meant that an election official came to assist him at his home. Dr. Goel is paralyzed, the result of a fall. An excerpt:

… a service like this one in Indiana isn’t available in all states, says Jim Dickson of the American Association of People with Disabilities.

Dickson, who is blind, says the country’s 37 million disabled voters face a variety of obstacles when trying to vote depending on their condition. And he says politicians don’t see disabled people as a voting block.

DICKSON: We don’t all look alike and we don’t all live in the same neighborhood. Government policies matter to our quality of life.

… DR. GOEL: We all can’t just sit back and let things happen. We must put in our voice. And only putting in our voice can we change things.

(WBEZ photo)

The Wall Street Journal’s Sue Shellenbarger says the voucher plan proposed by Gov. Sarah Palin in a recent speech is already being implemented in Florida, “with considerable success.”

Florida gives families of kids with disabilities vouchers equal to the amount taxpayers would spend to educate their children in their local public school. Averaging $7,295 each, the vouchers can be used in approved public or private schools. An excerpt:

School vouchers are controversial, of course; opponents say they undermine public schools. But in the special-needs arena, they offer an alternative to the costly, bitter lawsuits filed against school districts by a growing number of parents.

Editor’s note: Georgia started a similar plan last year. Earlier posts start here.

From the New York Times:

Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has a son with Down syndrome and has pledged to be an advocate for children with special needs, strikes a personal connection among some people with disabilities and their families.

In the two months since she was named as Senator John McCain’s running mate, Ms. Palin has made Trig, and children like him, the emotional center of her campaign.

And families have turned out at every stop, carrying signs, wearing T-shirts and pressing to the front of the rope lines for a hug or a photo with a candidate many of them see as a potential first friend in the White House, someone poised to bring better schooling, more Medicaid financing and greater attention to their cause.

Palin’s first policy speech as a vice-presidential nominee focused on special education and school funding for students with special needs. Many parents say they appreciate the presence of a candidate who understands their challenges firsthand and connects with them in a personal way.

(more…)