Kit Kerschensteiner on Absentee Voting by Disabled People

Frederica Freyberg:
Late this week, a Dane County judge refused to put on hold his ruling that allows disabled people in Wisconsin to be emailed absentee ballots at home for November’s presidential election. Republicans asked the judge to not enforce his ruling, while their appeal of a lawsuit brought on behalf of voters with disabilities is pending. But the Dane County decision now allows clerks to email ballots to voters who self-certify that they can’t read or mark a paper ballot without help. Disability Rights Wisconsin was among those who brought the lawsuit. Kit Kerschensteiner is director of legal and advocacy services and she joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.

Kit Kerschensteiner:
Thank you for inviting me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So what is your reaction to the judge now granting voters with disabilities the ability to cast ballots electronically?

Kit Kerschensteiner:
It’s a good first step. It’s not the total solution because this was a temporary injunction, we didn’t ask for all the relief. We don’t have the time to fix what needs to be fixed between now and November. So the suit will continue past November. We’re hoping to get a way for people with print disabilities, which can be either due to vision issues or physical disabilities, that need help casting a ballot. We’re hoping that they can get a way to get an absentee ballot electronically sent to them. They can mark it with their devices, and it can be electronically returned.

Frederica Freyberg:
That’s the piece that’s missing.

Kit Kerschensteiner:
That’s for another day when we go through to the final trial, which will be some time off in the future, certainly far past November.

Frederica Freyberg:
So why was the suit brought in the first place?

Kit Kerschensteiner:
Because it’s fair. It’s a fair playing field for people of the state, no matter if they have a disability or not, to be able to cast a private ballot. And the state we’ve — we at DRW and others as well have been asking for this for a long time, and we haven’t made any progress. So it was time to bring the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, the state Constitution, and the federal Constitution, all of which led to this result.

Frederica Freyberg:
How many voters in Wisconsin could this affect?

Kit Kerschensteiner:
No one really tracks that exactly, but there’s people with disabilities generally in the nation, 15 or 20, 25% of the population. Now that’s all types of disabilities. So it narrows down when you’re talking about people with print disabilities, but it’s tens of thousands.

Frederica Freyberg:
And what concerns are there that the Wisconsin Elections Commission will actually be able to get this up and going so that voters can access this?

Kit Kerschensteiner:
Well, with this first step that only requires them to email the ballot to the individual, that should not be that difficult because they already do it for – excuse me – for individuals who are in the military or living abroad. We’re expanding — as a matter of fact – excuse me – up until recently, in the last 10, 12 years, everybody could ask for a ballot to be emailed.

Frederica Freyberg:
And so do voters know that they can do this now or how is that kind of messaging going to go out?

Kit Kerschensteiner:
Because we are a local system, all the individual clerks have to be involved and are going to be in charge of this. WEC is only going to be able to provide them the guidance and the support, but it’s the clerks that have to do this.

Frederica Freyberg:
So we spoke about the fact that another prong of what you’re looking for is the ability for voters who need this kind of access to be able to email it back to the clerk.

Kit Kerschensteiner:
Well, return it. There — different states are already doing it in different ways. Some require you to email it back. Some have a portal and you can actually cast your ballot online through a secure portal and it’s there. So what that remedy will look like in the end is still something we need to explore what will work in Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:
But in the meantime, the status quo now until potentially an appeal gets in the way, is that the voters will have to have it hand-delivered to the clerk.

Kit Kerschensteiner:
Well, or put in the mail, or put in a drop box. They will have to print it out, but they will be able to mark it privately if they have some sort of readily available software that’s out there for folks who need screen readers or all sorts of different things that you can use nowadays to take the printed word and be able to manipulate it so you can deal with it.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Well, we will be watching this as it moves forward. Kit Kerschensteiner, thanks very much.

Kit Kerschensteiner:
Thank you.