AAPD leader highlights RevUp training, DOJ guidance on accessible voting

Maria Town, CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities, said on HTV’s Focus on Abilities that AAPD’s RevUp program used an Election Assistance Commission grant to train students at Houston Community College’s VAST Academy to serve as paid poll workers and test accessible voting equipment.

Town said RevUp — short for “register, educate, vote, use your power” — recruited and trained students with intellectual disabilities, helped them test accessible voting systems and sign up with the Harris County Office of Elections to work the polls, where pay can be about $17 an hour. “These students had been told throughout their lives, ‘you don’t need to vote,’” Town said. “They all got trained on being an election worker.”

The training program and nationwide advocacy by AAPD and RevUp also contributed to fresh guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice on accessible voting, Town said. The guidance, the first in eight years, reiterates polling places’ obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act and clarifies voting rights for people under certain guardianship arrangements.

“[The DOJ guidance] highlights that people with intellectual disabilities have a right to vote even under certain instances of guardianship, which is a very big deal,” Town said. She added the guidance addresses problems such as overly restrictive polling-place assignments that can leave voters, especially in large cities, unable to reach their assigned location during early voting.

Host Lex Bridal, a professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and director of the ILRU program at TIRR Memorial Hermann, asked about practical outcomes of the training. Town described poll-worker duties that include bringing out curbside voting machines, assisting voters with accessibility needs and explaining voting rights at the polls. She said accessible voting equipment routinely fails in some places and that having trained poll workers with disability experience can reduce barriers for voters.

Town noted the scale of the issue: roughly 40,000,000 eligible voters in the U.S. have a disability — about one in four — and a persistent participation gap of about seven percentage points remains between voters with and without disabilities. She and Bridal discussed other barriers such as signature-verification problems for absentee ballots and challenges obtaining state identification, which have prevented some voters from casting ballots in person.

Town and Bridal emphasized remedies available under federal law. “It’s not just the Americans with Disabilities Act that gives us these rights; it’s also the Help America Vote Act, as well as the Voting Rights Act itself,” Town said. She encouraged anyone who experiences accessibility problems at the polls to file complaints with the Department of Justice.

The segment included practical details for people interested in serving as poll workers: in the Houston-area example Town described, trainees were informed about local pay rates and how to register with county election offices. Town and Bridal also noted that some jurisdictions provide specific poll-worker training on accommodating voters with disabilities, and that such training varies across jurisdictions.

The discussion combined AAPD’s programmatic work — training and paid opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities — with policy impact, specifically DOJ guidance clarifying accessible voting obligations and protections for voters under guardianship.

Town directed listeners seeking more information about AAPD programs to AAPD.com and said the organization could be contacted via communications@AAPD.com.