Homme/Hammerstrom/Radecic: Mission of the Rev Up Coalition PA

Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender. All comments, views, and opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the host, guest, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Welcome to the show everyone, and to all of you in the United States, it's get out the vote day. Vote, vote, vote! I'm wearing my little sticker, I voted. You need to vote, vote, get out and vote. And if you know other people that need help getting to the poll, make sure you help. You know, I always say, if you lived in a dictatorship where you had zero voice, none, oh my goodness, when you come to the United States and find out that you can even say you don't like the president without getting killed, Wow, what a great country. You have the right to vote. You can't imagine what it's like to not have a voice. Get out there and vote. If you don't, don't complain. This is what I say. I feel strongly about voting. And with that, Richard Roberts, I'll bet you're saying, "Yeah, Joyce, I agree with you." Richard is my friend. He is in Brazil. He's with the State Department. And I first met him in South Korea. And then I went to Okinawa to Japan. And now I'll be going next year to Brazil, hopefully. But you know what? He became like a fireball disability rights advocate. I mean, he's amazing. And we're going to get to see him when he comes to visit Pittsburgh. In December at my office. So, so excited to see you, Richard. Gang-young, thank you so much for sending me those beautiful photographs. I know, being that you are in Seoul, South Korea, how nerve-wracking it has been with what was going on from North Korea. But know this, we're thinking about you all the time. Benjamin in Kazakhstan, you know, I hope that you are still fighting the fight, which I know you Love you. And Cheryl Harris. Do you know when I met Cheryl? When she was in Tunisia. And then because she was in Tunisia, people from the Ambassador Norland was at the program. Ambassador Norland from Libya, because Tunisia and Libya share the same embassy, because it's not safe to have it in Libya. And then I got to do a presentation for them. And then guess what happened? Cheryl Harris moved back to the United States, and she is at— right at the State Department. So, um, you know, I love all of you. I just care about all of you. And all of my listeners in the 17 countries, keep on spreading the news about this radio show. You know, uh, China I just can't believe how you keep getting more and more listeners. So keep it up, because that's the way we change life— lives for people with disabilities. Yoshiko, you know I'm thinking about you today with the vote. You know I have a picture going out there with Justin about the vote. Joyce Bender. Love you, thinking about you. And I must thank our sponsor, Highmark. They have been our sponsor for years. And what a great company. What a great company. David, thank you so much. David Holmberg, the CEO, for your ongoing support. Well, let's get back to this great day in the United States. Voting day, it's voting day. So excited, I love voting day. And I love Rev Up. Oh, do I love Rev Up. You all know at one time I was the chair of the board of AAPD, and I left and I came back and now I am the vice chair. Such a great organization. But when Helena Berger was there, She worked with the great Bob Kafka from ADAPT and started RevUp. And I am going to have my two of the members of my own company. So I'm biased. I'll tell you now, I think they're phenomenal and they are phenomenal. So I'm going to let them talk about this. And I am going to start with you, Scott, just because of Bender Leadership being part of this. Could you take a couple of minutes and after you introduce yourself and what you do, talk about Bender Leadership?

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Joyce, and it's great to be on here. I am the manager of programs and partnerships for Bender Leadership Academy. It's a nonprofit organization that you started, Joyce, back in 2018. And what we're trying to do is getting our youth with disabilities getting them ready for the world of work. So we're teaching them leadership skills. We're teaching them how to do a resume, how to speak in the public, interviewing skills. We're teaching them healthy mind habits, community engagement, which we'll talk a little bit with Rev Up in a second, and financial literacy, and a whole bunch of different stuff. And here in Western Pennsylvania and throughout Pennsylvania, we're growing and growing, and we have over 125 5 youth with disabilities who are participating in some of our classes for this school year. So I do a lot of the programs and partnerships, and one of the things that we're doing, Joyce, as you mentioned, is Rev Up. So the Rev Up Voting Campaign is a nonpartisan— it's a national voting initiative focusing on advancing the power of the disability vote. Our mission is to foster civic engagement and protect the voting rights of Americans with disabilities. What REV UP stands for, it's Register, Educate, Vote, and Use Your Power. Our mission is to foster again that civic engagement and protect the voting rights of Americans with disabilities. And we focus all around the country nationally, this program, but we started a coalition here in Pennsylvania that— and Gerald will talk to you a little bit about locally what we're doing here. As you mentioned, Selena, and we started this program with 3AAPD back in 2016 as an initiative, and that's a cross-disability civil rights organization. And our goals are to increase civic engagement in the disability community. We make sure disabled voters are registered and ready to vote, fight against voter suppression and accessibility, which is still happening in 2022. And we're just building a network, a grassroots disability vote coalitions that advocate for the disability rights through a framework of intersectionality. So that's in a nutshell of what we do with Rev Up.

It's so exciting. I love Rev Up. Gerald, how about you? You can introduce yourself, uh, and then tell us what you've been doing with Rev Up I think you have some news for us too. So, Gerald, how are you involved with RevUp?

Thanks, Joyce. Well, my name is Gerald Homi. I'm the manager of talent acquisition and technology for Bender. I've worked for Joyce for 15 years. I'm a person with disabilities myself, learning disabilities, dyslexia, dysgraphia, mental health disabilities. And my father, Jim, was the first person Joyce ever placed into a job with a disability before she even started the company. So I get to manage our team that does our recruitment work. And, you know, earlier this year, Joyce came to Scott and me and said, I want to start up this coalition with AAPD so that Pennsylvania has an organization statewide across the whole state fighting for people with disabilities getting the access to vote because we all know that voting is so important in, you know, making a difference in our community. For example, when you vote in the presidential election in a few years, you'll be voting for whoever will select the person in charge of the Department of Justice who will be in charge of enforcing the ADA, which is something Tony talks a lot about when talking about the Tony Coelho when talking about the importance of voting. So, there's a lot of great organizations all across PA that are disability rights focused that have been impacting voting in their communities. And we wanted to bring all those organizations together and get a statewide effort to increase voter access for people with disabilities across the state, including things like Scott talked about, accessibility, and voter suppression and just education as well. I want to call out a few of our representative organizations that are doing great work, such as the PA Statewide Independent Living Council, of course, Perry Jude Radesik, our regular news anchor here on Voice America on Disability Matters with Joyce Bender from Disability Rights PA. There is a Rev Up Philly that is doing some great work in the city of Philadelphia with Liberty Resources as a big part of that. Of course, Joan Stein's doing a lot of great work with us. Jewish Family Children's Services of Philadelphia is doing great work. And that list is growing all the time of organizations that are getting involved in this grassroots movement across the state to make sure our polls are accessible inclusive and that people with disabilities understand their rights to vote. And big thanks to all those guys with the work they're doing across the state. I do have that breaking news you talked about, Joyce. This is something that's really important in PA for our listeners across the state. You know, last week the PA Supreme Court ruled that Pennsylvania officials cannot count votes from mail-in or absentee ballots that lack accurate handwritten dates on the return envelopes. So if there was not an accurate scan or any date—

could you repeat that, Gerald?

Yeah, so last week the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Pennsylvania officials cannot count votes from mail-in or absentee ballots that lack accurate handwritten dates on their return envelopes. Oh no. So if you think you didn't do that or you're unsure if you did, the deadline to cure and correct your ballot is 8 PM today on Election Day. We'll be posting on our social media as this show is wrapping up links and a toolkit that you could use to help make sure you can correct this or check if your ballot has been accepted. There's online resources where you can track your absentee ballot. You just provide some basic information, and if there's a problem with your ballot, there's a few steps you can take. You can contact your county election office. To make sure you're— you can correct it and get your vote counted, but you have to do it by 8 PM today. And if you are not able to cure your ballot or make adjustments to it, you can vote via a provisional ballot if you go on site to your voting location today. You can do a provisional ballot is another way to correct that. But once again, you have to do that by 8 PM Election Day. If you go to pavoterservices.pa.gov, there's some great information about this there to help track your ballot, but also find your polling location, your provisional ballot. And to fix your ballot, you can contact your election office. And if you need to find that election office, if you're like, I don't know who that is or who to call, go to vote.ea.gov/resources, and you should be able to find a link to contact your election officials. And once again, we'll be putting this information out on the Bender Leadership Academy social media. I know I'll be sharing it. And getting the help getting the word out there, as well as other reps from the coalition are going to be putting this information out across their social media and networks throughout the day. So make sure if you mailed in your ballot that it gets counted because that vote matters.

Oh, that is news that— oh, I just You know, that worries me. I assume this just happened, right, Gerald?

Um, the ruling was from last week. Yeah, it's really recent. There's a big concern over many ballots possibly not being counted because of this.

So, uh, absolutely terrible. Um, so Scott What do you think is the impact of Rev Up on a national basis? Because it isn't just Pennsylvania, it's not just the coalition in Pennsylvania. And by the way, when did, when did it start, the Pennsylvania Rev Up?

Uh, we started, uh, this year, um, Joyce, probably about 3 or 4 months ago, maybe in the summer, uh, for Pennsylvania.

Coalition—

August, sorry, August. And we got a great coalition that is absolutely growing. And just hearing from some of the people, a lot of the voting sites are still not accessible or the poll workers are not trained to handle people with disabilities. And that is one of the other concerns that we have. Nationally, poll work— there's a shortage of poll workers nationally. So if there's anybody out there who would be interested in being a poll worker, please sign up because, especially if you have a disability, because it'd be great to have somebody who can interpret or do anything like that. So we're— they're definitely looking for new poll workers. And the one thing for Pennsylvania, what I want to focus on, is getting young people and getting them engaged in how to register for voting and voting. Because if you start them young, they're always going to be engaged. But if they don't have that interest, it's going to be much challenging in the future. And it's very, very important. There's a lot of different things going on out there across the country that makes it difficult for people with disabilities. So it's important to vote.

Yeah. Oh my goodness. That's the— I always say, if you want to make change, you've got to vote. You've got to vote. And with that, we're going to go to break. Hey, if you just joined us, we are talking to Gerald Homme and Scott Hammerstrom about Rev Up Pennsylvania, and we'll be right back. Don't forget, If you haven't voted, get out and vote. Vote, vote, vote. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice on Disability Matters at VoiceAmerica.com. Don't go away, we'll be right back.

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Hey, welcome back everyone on voting day. And get out and vote. If you haven't voted, come on, don't sit around. Can't complain if you don't vote. Your vote couts. And Scott, uh, I know you follow history and you definitely follow politics because you and I talk about that. And yes, the Pirates. We are like two of the people in America that follow the Pittsburgh Pirates. Oh, Pastor Scott, that makes three. Uh, oh, Alyssa's husband, that makes four. Now it's up to four. Uh, but Scott There aren't many of us, but, um, Scott, what I wanted to talk about, even in recent history, sometimes people think, well, so what, I'm just one vote. But don't you think we've seen over the past several elections that a few votes can make a difference in winning an election or losing Every vote matters.

It's very, very important. As you can see if you watch the news tonight, most of the races are not going to be called tonight because they're too close to call. So it is very important. I just heard like a husband and wife, they, they don't vote because they said it would cancel each other off. No, you, you have to vote Every vote counts. Like I said, most of these races, they're 50/50, and it's too close to call. And there'd be nothing worse than if your candidate did not win because of a few votes. So, I can't emphasize it enough. Every election, not just for the midterms, not just for the president, make sure you review who's in your local area, because that's very small community and make sure you're knowledgeable and vote for that in every election moving forward.

Yes. How about you, Gerald? Do you have the same view?

Yeah, you will make a difference when you vote and you've got to get out there. If you're not sure where to go and you're in PA, pavoterservices.pa.gov is where you can find your polling place. You could still just go out there, show up. Vote. If you've never voted at that location before, you may want to bring ID. There are several different things you can show in terms of ID, everything from your state ID to your utility bills. And if you're concerned about accessibility at the polls, this has been a big effort that we've been pushing, and there's a lot of eyes and support on. If you go to vote.pa.gov. There is some information on accessible voting. I posted it to my LinkedIn page and it's on our Bender Leadership Academy LinkedIn page from early this morning on our social media where to find that accessible voting info. So if you need to make sure you have access to vote, uh, but accessibly, you can get that info there. So There's a lot of opportunity here to vote and be included. And like Scott said, every single vote matters.

Every vote matters. Every single vote. And, you know, if you go to vote and it's not accessible, let's say you're blind and it's not accessible, which I'm not sure, Gerald, now that it's paper in Pennsylvania, the ballot, I, I don't remember seeing a special machine for a person who is blind. How is that working if it's paper?

So, so the primary voting method is paper, but every polling location is required in the state of Pennsylvania to have at least one accessible voting machine. If you're blind, you cannot vote independently by filling out a paper because you can't see what's on it. So these machines are equipped with headphone jacks where you can have a voice read to you what's on the screen and make your own selection independently of who you want to vote without— for without assistance. So every location is required to have at least one of those. Many of these machines as well are equipped with puff controls and other switch controls for people with limited dexterity or mobility issues. And if you prefer to vote on the machine as opposed to paper, you can generally request that. I know I did at my polling office today because of my dyslexia and dysgraphia. I did not want to try to read that correctly and fill out that paper correctly. It was much more inclusive for me to use the polling machine. So those are supposed to be available, at least one, at every voting location throughout the state of Pennsylvania.

Yeah, you know, now that I think about this, and I'm sorry, sorry I did not think of it when I was there, but you know, you go through the line, A to whatever, A to L or whatever it was, Bender. Okay, Joyce Bender, here's my ID. Okay, sign here, uh, and then go to the end of the table. I go to the end of the table. All right, let me explain this to you. This is the ballot, which is paper. Just go through here and mark who you want to vote for. And then as soon as he told me that, he says, okay, go over there where that empty area is to vote. Now, why are they not saying like some sign there or something, because it's not apparent sometimes to everyone with vision loss that you have significant vision loss. But even, you know, dyslexia, don't you think they should be saying, hey, this is your alternative, you know, at that electronic machine?

Yeah, it's a, it's a huge issue. A lot of times, you know, poll workers do not understand the accessibility options for people working. They are coming in to vote, so we need to make sure that poll workers are ready and equipped to use accommodations for people and that as a voter you understand what you have a right to and how you can gain access to those accommodations to vote. You know, it's not only just issues of getting in and being able to, or just being able to fill out a ballot or use the machine or understanding your options. There are many polling places that Native Usually the sites are not very accessible, and they are supposed to be utilizing temporary accessibility modifications. So, for example, a ramp that you could roll out and that can be put in place for somebody to get into the building, and that can be taken down later. But many poll places, maybe they got that ramp a few years ago. They have different poll workers now. They're not sure where it is. So this is one of the issues we're fighting with accessibility of the vote across the state with Rev Up PA. If you go to a polling place and you find you don't have the accessibility needs that are required to be able to vote that day, please call the voter hotline, which is 1-877-VOTES-PA. That's 1-877-868-3772 to get support because we need to make sure that these places are accessible and ready to vote. Somebody from there may be able to help find what needs to get it done to make sure you can get in and cast your ballot, or may be able to get you to a different location where you'll be able to vote successfully. So if you run into any issues when you go on-site to vote today, that's the number to call. That's once again 1-877-VOTES-PA, 1-877-868-8687.

3772. Thank you, Gerald. And it is time for our news break on the half hour, and I don't think we'll let our anchor go today. I think we're gonna keep her. That's what I think. And that would be the CEO of Disability Rights Pennsylvania, Perry Jude Radesik.

Welcome.

Joyce, thank you, and it's great to follow Gerald and continue the conversation around Election Day updates.

Well, that's what we want to do because this is Voting Day Rev Up, and so you all know, you know, Perry is, first of all, she's known nationally for her disability rights work, but she is very involved in the vote in Pennsylvania helping people with disabilities. So first, Perry, did you have news that you wanted to share? Because after you share that news, there's something we want to talk about with you.

Sure, absolutely. Uh, so, uh, at the— it's what we know here in Pennsylvania. About 5 days ago, just over 1.4 million Pennsylvanians had requested a mail-in or absentee ballot for this midterm election. As of, as I said, about 5 days ago, just over 1 million had been returned. That's pretty good. That's a return rate of 71% with still a few days to go, including today, for those mail-in ballots and absentee ballots to, to get returned. We have seen some early problems in Pennsylvania today. It seemed to be situated with a handful of polling places, about less than 10 out of 9,000 Pennsylvania polling places did not have what they needed to open at 7:00 a.m. So county officials were busy early in the morning working to resolve those issues and get those polling places open as soon as possible. So that seemed to be the, the, the biggest problem today, were that polling places didn't open on time, and it was really limited to about the 10 polling places across our Commonwealth. So here's the thing, right? If people still have their mail-in ballot and haven't returned it, or you haven't voted yet, there's still time today to do that. If you have your mail-in ballot, you filled it out, you can drop it off in a drop box. And if you can't get to a drop box in your county, votespa.com has resources available, including a designated agent form. You can ask a neighbor, to go drop off your ballot at a drop box. So don't forget, you can still drop off your ballot at a drop box. You can get in line and go vote at your polling place today. You can go to votespa.org, look for your polling place, you'll find the exact location, and as long as you're in line by 8 PM, you'll still be permitted to vote. Now, Gerald gave you a phone number for the Department of State. The Department of State is working to resolve any issues, so it's important to to give them a call if you're having problems voting at your polling place. And if you experience harassment or intimidation, you know, call the Secretary of State's office at 877-VOTES-PA. But what's important is you get out and vote today. And if you face any challenges at the polls, call Election Protection. And if you go to disabilityrightspa.org, We have the Secretary of State's information posted on our advocacy matters segment. Just click on it and find that information. We also have a Spanish election protection hotline number. We have it in Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese. There's an 888-APA-VOTE. There's an Arabic election protection. The National Association of the Deaf has an ASL voter hotline, and the National Federation for the Blind PA has a hotline at all— also has a hotline. So what's important is you go to disabilityrightsPA.org, click on today's advocacy matters segment for all of that information, Joyce.

I'm so glad you have that at disabilityrightsPA.org. Uh, Perry, before you got on, we were— Gerald was talking about the recent Supreme Court ruling about not counting a vote if it didn't have the return address. What do you think about that?

Yeah, that is— that's actually a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that ballots that are undated or don't have the correct date in between certain timelines are supposed to be set aside. And there's already a lawsuit by the John Fetterman campaign here in Pennsylvania to make sure that those undated ballots are counted. He did not file it. In state court or go to Pennsylvania Supreme Court. He went to federal court with that issue. So what counties are supposed to do is set aside those undated ballots, and then we'll, we'll have to let this litigation go through the federal courts. I think one of the important things to know today is, you know, we're not gonna— we, we may not know the election results of all of the races by the end of the night. Or first thing in the morning. It may take a few days or longer to count those mail-in ballots and then to let some litigation resolve.

Ah, that's scary. That is really scary. Well, Gerald, you were going to talk about voter suppression, so with Perry on, this is probably a good time to do that. Uh, what, what did you— what were you going to say?

Gerald. Before we do that, I just want to just remind you from what we talked about earlier today, if you are affected by this, you know you did not put your, that date on your envelope, there is time for you to cure your ballots. In PA, the deadline for that is 8 PM today. We'll be posting out on our social media some information about how you can do that. At pavoterservices.pa.gov. You can look up the information on that. You can either— you can go online, you can track your mail-in ballot to see where it's at in the process. But if you need to carry your ballot, the deadline to do that is 8 PM today. And you can, if you're unable to make those adjustments, you can also do a provisional ballot at your polling location before 8 PM today as well.

Okay, that's good.

With Perry Jude here, Perry Jude knows very well what's going on with suppression of the vote here in PA, and I'll let Perry Jude talk a little bit about that if that's okay.

Yes. Yeah, she was. She's the expert.

Absolutely. So there were lots of threats of voter suppression prior to today. There were threats to go into long-term care facilities by election deniers and threats to go to drop boxes to monitor people dropping ballots off at drop boxes. I'm happy to say that The threat around long-term care facilities did not materialize, and largely we did not see a lot of voter intimidation at drop boxes in Pennsylvania. There was some in the eastern part of the state, but it was not widespread, and those issues were resolved quickly as soon as, as soon as Election Protection had learned about them. Or the Secretary of State's office had learned about them, those issues were resolved. So at least on that front. Now there are some reports that there are long lines and some delays, and so some people are getting loud when the lines are long. If people could just be patient, you'll get your opportunity to vote. And if you feel like there is intimidation in the line where you are at, just Please call the Secretary of State's office at 877-PA-VOTES. Let me just double-check. Yeah, at Votes PA, 877-VOTES-PA, to resolve those issues if you feel like you are being intimidated or harassed waiting in line.

What if you go and there isn't a ramp, you know, you just don't have a way to vote, then what?

Well, you should call us, uh, immediately because there should have been temporary modifications. Now, there are some locations, and I'm sure this is the case around the country, where there's voting in person. Uh, what is supposed to happen are the counties are supposed to deploy temporary modifications to make a polling place accessible, and that could mean lots of things: a ramp from a parking space up the curb or a ramp to get into the front entrance. And so those had to be deployed. If not, uh, in at least in Pennsylvania, call us immediately and we'll contact the county and make sure that that ramp gets out there. Don't leave. We don't have curbside voting in Pennsylvania. They do in other states, but not here in Pennsylvania. So we have to know so we can get that resolved for you.

Yeah, I, I mean, that is a definitely a scary thing. Uh, Gerald, Disability Rights PA is one of the, uh, main organizations, of course, that we're working with. But for Rev Up, who else are we working with?

We've got such a great collection of resources we've got across the state. First of all, Disability Rights PA is awesome in the work that that they're doing with this. We've got Liberty Resources, which is a part of Rev Up Philly, which is all across Philadelphia with similar efforts. That's really been an active participant. Also over in Philly, Jewish Family and Children's Services Philadelphia has been really great. Joan Stein here in Pittsburgh has been a really big advocate, as well as PA Statewide Independent Living Council has been a really active partner. And we're growing this. There is a, you know, we got to get as much as we can across the state with intersectionality included to make sure that all voices across disability are heard and accounted for. Every person counts. Every vote counts. So if you're hearing about this suppression and you're passionate about this and you want to get involved Go to benderleadership.org. You'll see right at the top, Rev Up across the top banner. You can fill out a little form there to join this movement and get involved with the Pennsylvania Rev Up Coalition.

Yeah, that is so awesome. And Scott, what I'm really excited about is the Valerie Jarrett Community Engagement, which Valerie, December 5th, will be receiving the Toni Coelho Award presented by Bender Consulting Services for her work in employment and advocacy. How about if you share with everyone what is the Jarrett Community Engagement and how does that relate to voting?

Oh yeah, thank you, Joyce. So yeah, we started the Valerie Jarrett Community Engagement And we are adding that into all of our curriculum for our classes. So I mentioned the student leaders classes. We have a work readiness class. We have an advanced student leaders class. And we are just teaching them about advocacy and standing up for your rights and to make sure— some of them could be 16, 17, or they could be 18 years old— making sure that they know to— how to register to vote, how to look up information about the candidates, how to make sure that if they have a disability, how can they— if they need special accommodations or need something accessible to make that happen. And so Valerie Jarrett, you know, was part of President Obama's administration. And Joyce, you know her very well, and partnered up to, to get this program off and running because we, we think it's very, very important to, for young people to learn about advocacy and community engagement and make sure that they vote.

Oh yeah, that I am so proud about that and so excited. That's so awesome. Uh, Perry, just knowing How to vote for people with disabilities is so critical. Do you know the percentage of people, Perry, in Pennsylvania who voted in the last election?

Joyce, I'd have to look that up. I don't off the top of my head. I know 2 years ago was a presidential election and I think turnout was high in Pennsylvania, but I don't know. I was just checking a polling place out for accessibility before I jumped on the show today, and they said voter turnout was higher than 2 years ago at this polling location. So, I know it's— I think turnout's going to be high this time, but I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head.

Well, that's okay. Obviously, I don't, or I wouldn't be asking you. So, Perry, what, what do you think? Do you think that we will get from Rev Up— do you think there will be a bigger percentage of people with disabilities that go out and vote?

Oh, absolutely. I think Rev Up is critical to voter registration for people with disabilities, voter education for people with disabilities, and to help get messages out about voter turnout for people with disabilities. It's very critical to, to the political power of people with disabilities.

Absolutely.

Yeah, it really is. It is very important. And Gerald, I wanted to ask you, what, what was your— what did you think when we first started this? And then Scott, you can comment on that. The Rev Up meetings, you know, are you excited about that? How did you feel?

Oh, I am thrilled. First of all, I think voting is so important. I've always been very passionate about this. And you know me, I've always been kind of civil rights oriented. And I think this is one of the best ways you can, you know, utilize to fight for civil rights is by voting. And this has been a really interesting, even learning experience so far. In terms of the work we're doing, learning about what are some of the issues that we're coming up against within the community. For example, one of the things we're finding is that a lot of people with disabilities throughout the state feel as though their vote doesn't count, which obviously isn't true. Their vote does count. But I think one of the ways we can help Increase that engagement is helping people with disabilities understand how their vote counts. When they're voting for a specific elected office, what does that position mean for disability? What issues is that for disability rights are going to be impacted by that official that you're voting for? I know we've heard that a lot of people in the deaf community don't feel included in voting, and we're going to be trying to work together with representatives from the deaf community here in PA to impact that. And, you know, just the amount of issues you think now that we're, you know, 32 years from when the ADA was signed would be, you know, people with disabilities would be all voting and all included and we wouldn't have all these issues today. There's still problems that need tackled and it's important for coalitions like this and the ones that REV UP has all across the US and other states working together to tackle this locally and nationally. It's just really a pleasure to be a part of that and contribute to that because I don't like to see injustice and people not included.

Yeah, me neither. I agree with you. How about you, Scott?

Yeah, thank you, Joyce Bender. Yeah, I'm a— as you mentioned, I'm a political junkie, a history junkie, and I was a judge of elections for over 10 years. And so always involved with the political process. Saying that, I am still amazed and shocked that there's still so many challenges for people with disabilities just to be able to vote. And you're like me with that we're still— we're in 2022 and there's still these basic issues of accessibility to get into a polling place. And there's also the lack of training, I think, for some of the poll workers. But kudos to all the poll workers who go out there and do this every year. It's so important. And like I said, mentioned before, you know, we're all— Pennsylvania, there's a mass shortage of poll workers. So please, if you're able to do it, please do. But I, you know, Rev Up is very important. This is a very important election. But all elections are important. So I want this to grow and expand for Pennsylvania. So we're ready for the next election in May and moving forward.

Yeah, that is for sure. Um, I have a question for you, Perry. There actually have been people without disabilities but with disabilities that told me over the past few days they were afraid to go vote because they've been seeing on the news the threats to people that are working at the polling office, polling centers. What, what do you think about that?

Well, those threats to poll the— to our election officials are real. They receive them on a regular basis, and Pennsylvania was one of the states looked at by the Department of Homeland Security, along with other states across the country, for the potential for increased threats. Now, you know, the good news is they either didn't recruit people to do this, or they've got some other plans. But I mean, you know, it's safe to go and vote today. And I would encourage people to go and vote if you haven't done it yet. Go ahead and go vote in person. There is enough— there are enough poll watchers and roving workers who belong to REV UP or Election Protection that can get word to county election officials and to constables if there are any issues. So I would say it is safe to go and vote, and while we have to take all threats and deal with them in a real way, the good news is those really haven't materialized today, and people still should go and vote.

Yeah, and I feel, you know, if you go and you're apprehensive at all of any type of violent threat, you know, step away. You always want to be safe and dial 911. I mean, I am telling you, when people see on the news that at certain polls people have on bulletproof vests, it's scary. It's frightening. But I don't think we're going to see that. I mean, have you heard of anything in Pennsylvania, Perry?

I have not. Not like that. No, not like that.

Not at all.

And I think there's— there is misinformation out there. That's true. And I think an important thing to keep in mind is, you know, don't expect election results Tonight or early tomorrow morning. And don't let some of that misinformation out there on social media get to you, because it just is going to take a while to open those mail-in ballots and count the votes. And we want every vote to count, and your vote counts, and it's important to get to the polls. We're not having widespread at all voter intimidation or harassment. They're isolated incidents and they're being taken care of. So please get out there and vote.

Yeah, you can't let false information prevent you from voting. So, Perry, what are your hopes for today?

Well, that every vote counts. That's my hope, that everyone who casts a ballot will, will have that vote counted and have the opportunity to cure their ballot If there was a mistake, I know people were reaching out, coalitions were reaching out to people whose ballots need to be corrected, so there's still time to go ahead and, and get those ballots corrected, as Rev Up has, has mentioned, uh, during your show. So my hope is that every vote counts.

Okay, and, uh, one last time, if you are in Pennsylvania and you go to vote, but there isn't access to vote, what do you do?

Yes, please call us here at Disability Rights Pennsylvania. Our phone number is, uh, 800-692-7443. That's 800-692-7443, and we will resolve it quickly with the, with the county.

Excellent. How about you, Gerald? What's your hope?

My hope is that every vote counts, that people with disabilities are counted in all things, but especially in elections, and that accessibility increases in the state of PA with, you know, the ability to vote voting with a machine for people with— who have all different types of disabilities that that becomes a better outcome for.

And you, Scott?

I hope every vote counts. And then when you do go to vote, I hope you come home safely and it's, you know, a positive experience voting.

I can tell you it was not only a positive experience for me, and as you all know, as a person living with epilepsy and hard of hearing, I want to see people with disabilities out there voting. I mean, I want everyone to vote, but I want to see people with disabilities out there voting. But you know what? I too, Scott, complimented the, um, people that were working, you know, taking at the polls. I did. I complimented them, and I just think that they are I just think they are champions to me, that they are out there. And I want to say a special shout-out to Reverend Lisa Harris-Lee from the American Baptist Home Mission Societies, that American Baptist Home Mission Societies today organized a day of national prayer. For safety for the voters, for people to use wisdom. It was really a wonderful thing. Curtis that works there used to be at AAPD with Jenny Thornburg, and I was so honored to be asked to say a prayer. But thank you also, Reverend, for getting behind everything to do with the dignity of the vote. Perry, Scott, Gerald, thank you for being with me today.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

It's always a pleasure.

And I'll bet you know the quote I'm going to use. Gerald, you're not allowed.

Don't ever want to say it.

Not allowed. Don't allow. You're not allowed. And that is, vote as if your life depends upon it, because it does. Said the great late Justin Dart Jr. Get out and vote, everyone. Get out and vote. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, where disability matters, at voiceamerica.com. Talk to you all next week.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please Join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific time and 2 PM Eastern time for another installment of Disability Matters right here on the Voice America variety channel. We are the leader in live internet talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com.