Importance of the Disability Vote in 2020, and Voter Accessibility

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.

Hi everyone, welcome to the show. To all of my guests in the United States and around the world, thank you, thank you. I was just thinking, it's hard to believe Who knew from when this show started 16 years ago that we would have a large presence in China? Who knew? But listen to all of you listening to this show, no matter where you are in the world, one person can make a difference. One person. So thank you, thank you. And a special shout out to the Embassy in Japan, Richard Roberts, my friend and disability leader, Embassy in South Korea, Gangneung, and to Cheryl, the Embassy in Tunisia. And you know, we had the show on with Japan, we have one coming up with South Korea and one coming up with Tunisia, all of them fighting for the fight in their country for equality for people living with disabilities. Shout out Yoshiko. I have a shout out on every show to Yoshiko Dart. Hope you're having a great day. And we would not be able to do all of this were it not for Highmark, who has been our lead sponsor for 4 years. Can you believe it? Peoples Natural Gas, a new supporter this year, and Wells Fargo, another new supporter this year, and the Employment Options. All new sponsors. So great to have all of you on the show. And you know, speaking of when I was saying this show's been on 16 years, this is going to give you an idea of how long I have known— actually, it's longer though. It's longer than the 16 years. My mentor, I always say I'm the tormentor. I am so lucky to know this man, Tony Coelho, who is former congressman and author of the ADA. Guess what, Tony? You were on 16 years ago.

I'm always on when Joyce asks me to do anything. I say yes. I don't know why. I just always say yes.

Yeah, well, that's a good thing that you do. But we are— Tony, who is every year a guest 2 or 3 times, is our largest listening guest. I mean, listeners around the world, 'cause we keep track of all that. So it's always an honor to have Tony. And we have, no, we had him several years ago, Ted Jackson, who is a disability and LGBTQ advocate Both of them working in the Democratic campaign for Vice President Biden. And today, you know, we have a huge listening audience in Pennsylvania. Huge. And being that that's where I'm headquartered in Pittsburgh, I mean it. You better get out there and vote. Don't make me come and find you. You better get out there and vote. And Tony, as I mentioned, you definitely know politics as Congressman and Whip, formerly, and author of the Americans with Disabilities Act. I want you now, you are the chair of this Disability Policy Committee. Can you talk about that committee and what the goals are?

Thank you, Joyce Bender. It's great to be on with you. And with Ted, actually, I'm a chair of the DNC Disability Council and a co-chair of the Biden Disability Committee, Policy Committee. The whole effort here, obviously, is to get the disability community more engaged in politics. We have been very engaged in outreach in regards to our issues and our advocacy for for different programs and so forth. We have fought hard, been successful over the years in getting that done. But I've always felt that we haven't done enough in regards to being recognized as a political factor. To a great extent over the years, we as a disability community are not consulted in regards to politics. We basically have to— push our way into political discussions in regards to disability. And so the way you do that is you get very engaged in all parts of politics, and that is money-raising, that's in get out the vote, to register, and whatever it is that's part of the political process that we are all engaged. We represent about 25, 26% of the American voting population. So, that's a huge community. And because we're not organized politically, we haven't been the biggest factor politically that I think we can be. In the last 2 years, we've gotten very organized. I'd say probably in the last 4 years, we were involved in the Clinton effort overwhelmingly, but in the last 4 years we've moved in these different directions. Ted's been involved with me in all that effort in building a structure politically within the disability community, and they've done a lot this year, and I'm sure Ted will get into some of that later. The, the disability policy Committee under Mr. Biden. Basically, we divided up into 7 different categories and came up with policy proposals. We had 250 people from throughout the country with different disabilities, and we had several subcommittees in different areas, and we came up with proposals for the campaign. And hopefully for transition and when he governs in January. Those efforts have now been completed. As a matter of fact, I think it's tomorrow night, we'll be thanking people for their effort in regards to all the policy issues. And we're— that group is now working on get out the vote, participating in every way that we can to make a difference in this last week of the campaign. It's been an exciting year, 2 years, in developing this and getting heavily engaged, and I think it provides a lot of credibility to the disability community for us to be as involved as we are.

You know, I have to tell you, I was thinking about this. First of all, I mean, Okay, let's, we all know how much I love Tony, but I'm very, you know, really factual when I tell you this. It is Tony that not just for the past 2 years, but for many years has been the voice saying, "Why aren't you talking about disability? Why aren't you talking about disability?" I mean, it's been him. I've seen him, you know, in different campaigns calling saying, "Why did you not talk about disability?" Which just goes to show you, it's amazing to me that this has been like this. When Tony talked about this huge percentage we have in this country and knowing all of that, oh my goodness. If you had 10 million, 5 million, you can imagine, you know, we get to the place where the candidates would want to, you know, speak to us and really, really get more engaged with the community. So my question to you, Tony, is what do you feel we have to do to get to that place?

Well, I think we're making progress. For instance, in the past, the candidates running for president— I'm not just talking about candidates running for president, I'm talking about for governor, for Senate, for state, federal house, but also local elections, governors and people in the local legislatures— is that for the first time, every— in this primary, every Democrat running for president had a disability platform. That they prepared and proposed. And we got every candidate to do that. It had never been done before. We also got a question on disability during the debates. So, we've made progress in regards to the engagement of the presidential candidates. Joe Biden is someone with a disability, but also someone who has supported the ADA, has supported our disability needs and efforts over the years. So he's a friend indeed. We've had trouble on the Republican side in regards to that same attention, that same support. But I take the view that a lot of us with disabilities are Republican and Democrat. And so, whatever party you're in, you should be actively engaged in getting the folks running for office in your party to be involved with the disability community, to seek out the views of the disability community. Instead of us having to force our way into the discussions, we should be pursued like political campaigns pursue women, people of color, gays, business community. Rural America, and so forth. And that's something that I think, as a result of the efforts over the last couple years, that has sort of started to change with the people running for president. Now, what we're working on is, if Biden wins, is who gets appointed to different positions in the government. And that would be a situation where we build a platform, a foundation of people with disabilities with skills in these different areas that can then keep maturing in the political process, and so that we can have people appointed to cabinet posts and so forth. So, it's a process of development, and I think we've made great progress over the last couple years, more so than we ever have. Um, it's frustrating, I think, as Ted will say, that we haven't always succeeded in what we wanted to succeed in, but we are making great progress. And the disability community, in looking at the election 7 days from now, you have a choice. You have a choice of someone who knows disability, understands it, has it, and so forth, or somebody who basically, with COVID and every other thing, is not that supportive— I should say not supportive at all of our efforts and makes fun of us and so forth. So it is critical that we get out there and vote. There's people will say, you know, my vote doesn't count. Yes, it does. If you take in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania in 2016. All 3 of those states combined, the, the vote that we lost was 78,000. So 78,000 people throughout those 3 vote— 3 states were the ones that in effect gave the, the election to Mr. Trump. Um, we have more than that in each of those states. So if our community were aggressive and get out there and so forth, we could have made a difference in '16. We can make that difference in '20. For those of us who have a disability, we should be out there aggressively voting and getting our family members to vote, getting our loved ones to vote, getting our next-door neighbor and our friends to vote. We desperately need to have an administration that supports our needs instead of makes fun of us. And so, I plead with your audience that this happened. And for your foreign listeners, Joyce Bender, I think they would all say that we as Americans lead the way in regards to disability rights. And so the more that we participate in our country, in our process, the better it is for people all over the world that they can get their countries to recognize the rights of those of us with disabilities.

Oh, I agree with that so much. I do, because author of the ADA, and then there's— this went around the world. Different countries adopted this around the world, and they do look to us. And so that is a great point that you made. Ted Jackson, what is your background, and how the heck did you get involved in this political arena?

Joyce, you always ask the best questions. I actually had a background in theater and teaching, you know, teaching theater in schools and Shakespearean performance, and had volunteered for campaigns a lot and had experienced some discrimination, and so started volunteering for a ballot initiative campaign in Ohio that related to that discrimination. And just kept volunteering until I was pretty much volunteering full-time and they offered me a job and I took it and we won the campaign and I was just kind of hooked. Then I went and worked for some candidates, worked for LGBTQ ballot initiatives and the marriage equality movement. And then when that died down, I was working on a project in California between the LGBTQ community and the disability community. Most of my work had been more focused on the LGBTQ stuff, although I am a person with disabilities. I met a woman named Teresa Fabuzzi and Christina Mills from California Foundation for Independent Living Centers. They had a job opening, and they came to me and asked if I wanted to do some of their grassroots community and political organizing for them. So I took the job, and it just kind of grew from there and started doing disability advocacy for about 7 years for them on a variety of different issues. One of the things that I really locked into was election accessibility policy and eventually got appointed by 2 secretaries of state to their advisory committee on election accessibility. And then I met Tony Coelho, which was a great day in my life, and he said, you know, come 'Come to D.C., come work on Hillary's campaign and for the DNC.' And so I did and have built a great relationship with him. And together we have just been working on accessibility in the party, but also, you know, really increasing disability voter turnout as a major goal. And I've gotten to do a lot of great work in the past 4 years being in the Democratic Party.

And you know what, um, yeah, and Ted, you are really a hard worker. I know you're going to remember this. Do you remember that night several years ago that you called me, Joyce, I need help? It was the day of the election, people not being able to get transportation. Do you remember that?

Yeah, we had— it was, um, it was actually about 1 o'clock in the afternoon on Election Day, and we had 170 more people who are wheelchair users than we had availability for rides for, and you were incredibly helpful. Um, all of these people were in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and I reached out to you, and then you activated your network, and I reached out to Anna Purn and some folks in the Philadelphia area, and we got a ride. We found accessible vehicles. We got a ride for all 170 of those people, and they all voted that afternoon.

Was that not awesome? And, you know, do you have advice ahead of time for people that, you know, feel they're going to have a difficulty with transportation?

Yeah, you know, public transportation is such an important issue. You know, it's an important issue for everyone. Whether you rely on it because of a disability or whether you believe in it because of climate change or something like that. But public transportation benefits all of us, but it's so incredibly important for an election and for disabled folks and people who are lower income or just don't have a car to be able to get out and to vote, whether that's early voting, dropping off a ballot, a mail ballot at a drop box, or showing up on Election Day. So the very first thing that I tell people is you have to make a plan to vote. And we hear that from everyone. Joe Biden saying it, Barack Obama saying it, you know, I've heard Tony say it. I mean, that's what we say in the Democratic Party, make a plan to vote. And the first thing you need to do in making a plan to vote is to decide when you want to vote and then work backwards from there. Is it early voting? Is it I'm going to vote by mail and drop it off or put it in the mail? Or is it, I'm going to vote on Election Day? And once you decide how you're going to vote and when you're going to vote, you can work backwards and go, okay, what's the best bus schedule for me to take? Or what's the best method of transportation? Ordering my paratransit vehicle in advance, plotting out the bus route if I'm taking fixed route bus and making sure that I'm scheduling that time and everything. And then for some people who are able to take Uber and Lyft. They do, you know, give free rides to the polls. You can go to their website and you can check out the code. They do only give one-way rides though to the polls. They don't give a return ride from the polls. But, you know, for folks who are taking, you know, who don't have their own vehicle, getting to the polls is extremely important. So you want to make that plan, decide when you're going to do it, and then work backwards from there to plan out all of your transportation needs.

That is such good advice. That's why I tell people, have Plan B. Have Plan B in case something happens that, you know, paratransit doesn't get there. I'm sure it'll be crazy, you know, that day. So Plan B, something happens, you know, have some other way you're gonna get there, friends, whatever it is. Because your vote, your vote is so important. Tony, you were talking about Vice President Biden and him talking about having a disability, which he mentioned in one of the presidential debates about his stutter. You've known him. You know, what do you know about how he's dealt with this? And how he feels about that, and also what that can do for young people that may have the same disability seeing this with the President of the United States.

Well, Joyce, this is a critical element of Joe's personality. He started stuttering when he was about 4 years old. Point in school, basically, he was bullied, made fun of, and so forth. So he learned early on what happens when people make fun of you, when people abuse you, and so forth. So he's experienced that, and those of us with disabilities, practically every one of us have faced something like that. But he understands that. Over the years, He learned that, and most stutterers do, that when you are faced with a word that you're not going to be able to get out, or a thought, you quickly change the word or change the thought so that you can keep talking. To some people that sounds like you have some type of problem and not a stutter, they just think that You know, the current administration tries to say that Joe has a mental disability, that he's aging, and so forth and so on, which is not fair, not true. But that is what happens. And he has, over the years, spoken at stuttering conferences. They've had him many times. There's been articles written I've been pushing him hard to talk more about it. He eventually did at one of the CNN programs. And then during the convention, he had this young man that he met during the campaign who was stuttering when they met, and he befriended the young man. Told him that everything would be okay and gave him his phone number and said, "Call me anytime." And so that kid gave a presentation at the convention that was very emotional, and I think people connected right away with him. He was stuttering, but he basically talked about Joe as a role model and what that meant to him as an individual. And then just 10 days ago, I think it was, on International Stuttering Day, Joe and this young man exchanged a video where he was again thanking Joe for the model that he'd become for him and for other young people with the disability and particularly stuttering. And so, It's a part of Joe that I always say it doesn't— you know, some political types think it makes you weak when you talk about your disability. I happen to disagree. I think it's the other way around. It shows a great deal of strength to talk about your disability, particularly if you're in public office and so forth, because people can misinterpret what's going on, which is what some people have done in regards to Joe Biden. But here's a man who's been in public life for 40 years, and he was a member of the United States Senate, and very successfully there as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee for several years. He became Vice President of the United States, dealing with foreign leaders all over the world, with relationships with these leaders. Helping President Obama get things done and so forth. Here's a guy who led the effort in regards to the Ebola virus, and, and he also was one of the leaders in the effort to get Obamacare passed the Senate. So he has the relationships, has the knowledge, has the strength in order to get the job done. But most importantly, for those of us with disabilities, He understands us. He understands what we go through every day, and for him to be open about it has been fantastic for us. The last person that I know of that had a disability was Franklin Roosevelt, but as most people know, he basically hid his disability for a long time, and so now In this situation, we would have somebody in the White House who would understand that disability is part of every part of society. As Ted just mentioned about transportation, but in healthcare and transportation, you can go through everyday life and it— disability is a factor. So having somebody as the number one person in the United States, the President of the United States, understanding us, supporting us and so forth is really, really critical. Joe is a wonderful individual, just a person who I think in watching him you feel that he radiates the warmth towards others. He listens to others, which is really very important for a leader, and you can sense it, you can feel it and so forth. So I, I just think what he's been doing in regards to his own disability and the way he's reacted to people and his outreach to people with disabilities— there was a video of he was a young man just a while ago who had an intellectual disorder, and the kid came up to him and wanted to hug him, and Joe hugged him, and he said, "Are you okay?" And the young man shook his head and said, "No." And so Joe then asked him a question and said, "You will be okay. I will make sure you're okay," and hugged him and kissed him on the forehead. It was a very emotional scene to watch. Watch because of his empathy, his outreach to someone who I'm sure had been really discarded, not listened to by other people. And here you have a person who will be the number one, the most powerful person, not only in the United States, but one of the most powerful persons in the world, who has no trouble hugging one of us with a disability, kissing us on the forehead and saying, "You're going to be okay. I will make sure you're okay." Yeah, that is phenomenal.

That is. And you know, when you were talking about, you know, the stuttering disability, let me just say, that is a disability where people have a difficult time gaining employment and are discriminated against. And many young people have been and they don't wanna talk about it. And for all of you families out there, have you any idea what it does for any child with a disability when the President of the United States has a disability? I mean, you know, there is no price tag that you can put on that. And that is why I personally love Vice President Biden and Kamala Harris. And I think they will be great. I think they will be wonderful in office. And I think he's a statesman, and that's what we need, a statesman, and someone that can fight this horrible coronavirus. Now, Ted, I've had different people here in— right here in Pittsburgh, actually, that use power wheelchairs. Tell me stories about how they tried to vote and it was not accessible getting in, but in addition to that, there were some people standing there from the opposing party that were somewhat intimidating. Now, let's start with the first question. What would you advise someone, or what should We, right now, since there are people listening to us, what should we do to advise them on this? What can they do if they go somewhere and it isn't accessible?

So, you know, the inaccessibility of polling places in this day and age just still shocks me because at this point, 30 years into the ADA,, as well as many other federal laws and just life experience, you know, polling places should be accessible. And, um, you know, when they're not, um, and it's, it's very, very frustrating when they're not. Um, we know that because it just hasn't been a priority for folks. And so in some way, whether it's intentional or not, it really is voter suppression. Um, and, and we need to to claim it and name it as that. And so we need to be consistent in fighting it and fighting for accessible polling places. I'm gonna tell you a little bit first about what we're doing at the DNC, and then I'm gonna run through some, you know, public information for folks. You know, we have really been looking at this over the last 2 years. We've bolstered our voter protection program. We have been doing training with all of the state voter protection programs as well as our national one, and with the Biden campaign voter protection program in ADA rights, in what an accessible polling place should look like, down to like, you know, the rights of people as they're standing in line to have, you know, to have a seat or to have a seat inside, and including people who are covered under the ADA that we might not, you know, normally think about, like pregnant women or nursing mothers or people who are caring for a child with a disability who are having to stand in line because we don't want them to leave and we want the experience to be accessible for them. We're also putting in hotlines that are text-based for people who are deaf and hard of hearing with an ASL escalation video call so that people who need to have ASL as their primary language can communicate with someone. And we're putting response teams on the ground around the country so that we can help deal with this. But if someone is stuck at a polling place that is not accessible and they're encountering barriers to voting, one of the things that they can do on their smartphone or if they bring a tablet with them right away is to go to iwillvote.com. That's our website. It's iwillvote.com and the Spanish version is VoyaVotar.com. There's also kind of a fun version of it that's FlyWillVote.com because of the fly from the debate. Go to the same website and all of the information on the hotlines is on there. You can also check your voter registration. You can get a link to go to your state website to track your mail, vote-by-mail ballot. There's tons of information on there including our accessible hotline information. So if someone really wants to reach the accessible hotline and, and not just call the standard hotline, well, let me cover first the standard hotline. It's an easy, easy, uh, number to remember. It's 833-DEM-VOTE. That's 833-DEM-VOTE. That's a voice-based hotline that's on iwillvote.com. But if you want a text-based one, you can text the word ACCESS Access to 43367, and you'll get connected to our accessible voter assistance text line. And this is because the voice hotline is just not accessible to, to many people with disabilities. If someone needs ASL and identifies that through the text message, then we will send them a link and they will speak to someone in ASL on a video call to get the information that they need. We will take this information in through any of these hotlines and then we will process it to see if we can advocate with the county. We can call the county office and say there isn't, there isn't accessibility at this polling place, we need it fixed right away. We have lawyers in the state, we have lawyers on the ground. I got a call even Sunday from our team in New York. There was a polling place in Long Island where the poll workers had parked in front of the accessible parking spaces and the wheelchair user who had accessible van had nowhere to park to go in to vote. So we were able to advocate with the, with the county elections office to call them to make sure they moved it and did that pretty quickly. But we're here on our hotline to help, and we're here to help everyone. The other thing too is that the— we do have a Spanish language text hotline, and you text the word "Acceso," that's A-C-C-E-S-O, to the same number, 43367. Acceso to 43367. And then also we have a text line that's dedicated just for Curb curbside voting issues. And as we all saw recently, the Supreme Court ruled not in our favor in a case in Alabama on curbside voting, is allowing Alabama to get away with not having curbside voting. But you just text the word curbside, C-U-R-B-S-I-D-E, curbside, to 43367, and that, um, That's where we handle questions that are simply about curbside voting. And I'll remind folks that curbside voting doesn't just include being inside of a car and driving up or being inside of a vehicle and driving up. It also includes people possibly who may take public transportation and roll to the front of the polling place. And we see this a lot in metro areas where the polling place might be accessible inside, but there isn't a ramp or a lift or an elevator to get to there. So people who are using a mobility device have to vote curbside outside. So it's not just for vehicles and cars. But, you know, I want to end this little section by saying one of my mentors is Secretary Alex Padilla, who I've learned so much from. And, you know, he has really His tenure in office has been centered on opening doors and breaking barriers to voting for everyone, and that's what we need to do. And we really need to recognize that when, when there is a problem with barriers to voting and polling places in this day and age, or the access to information like the voter education information and it's not accessible, We have to do something about it, and our hotlines are here to help you on Election Day, during the election, to do that. But we also need to advocate in between elections because in and of itself, that is a form of voter suppression that we need to fight.

Wow, that is such great information. You know, if you're listening to the show and you're thinking, oh my goodness, I wish I could get this out to these other disability groups or independent living centers. You know, this is on demand. That means you can go to Apple or Spotify and subscribe to Disability Matters with Joyce Bender on voiceamerica.com, or you can go to voiceamerica.com and grab the podcast Or you can go to benderconsult.com. You've got to get this show, you've got to get this out to people, because as Tony said— and I'll talk about that again, what I was going to say, Tony— to people that think one vote does not matter, every vote matters, right?

That's exactly right. I mean, so if you take races all across the country Some of those races have been decided by very small amounts. And, uh, so people need to know that your vote does count, uh, and you could be, uh, the one that, uh, puts in a very person that is opposed to your needs, your concerns, your beliefs. And so voting is what a system that we have here in the United States that has worked for so many years. Ted is working on trying to make it accessible for everyone with a disability, but we're making great progress there. So it is critically important that we participate, particularly in this election. This is a critical election in so many different ways.

It is. And Tony, there are people that are thinking they're afraid that their ballot, you know how you can drop off the ballot, they're afraid that that isn't safe or, you know, they hear this on the news, you know, from the other party, how there could be a scam or it's rigged, but that is safe when you go and you mail something, that is safe, you know, isn't that correct?

It's totally correct. I mean, uh, professionals from both parties, secretaries of state, which most states, uh, they are the ones responsible and cover voting, uh, they basically say that it is extremely safe and it is. Over the years we've had very, very few problems with voting in regards to somebody trying to sabotage and so forth. One of the big mistakes that is made is that people forget to take the ballot and put it in the inside envelope that you then seal, and that protects your confidentiality. And then you take that envelope and put it inside, uh, the bigger envelope that has the stamp on it, and then what you need to do is you need to sign it in the back. If you don't sign it in the back, it doesn't count. If you don't use the middle envelope to provide the confidentiality, uh, in a lot of states it doesn't count. So if you go through those simple steps, uh, there the votes are counted. The only thing we have this year is that the Postal Service deliberately on the part of the president and some others has slowed down the mail, which impacts all kinds of people, but it definitely impacts the voting. And people are saying that a lot of the ballots are delayed and that it could be a week. So basically, if you're planning to do it by mail, you need to do it put your ballot in the mail today. And the later you take, the odds are that you may not be able to have your ballot counted. So voting early is important, either in person or ballot or mail, or as Ted was pointing out, in the drop boxes and so forth. But the— in regards to illegality or people deliberately committing fraud in regards to mailing. That has not happened by any great number in, in our country over the years. And so it is safe as long as you realize there are these delays, and as long as you realize the process of voting, uh, the ballot, when marked and without any comments on it. You can't do that. Just mark the ballot, put it in the inner envelope, seal it, take that envelope and put it in the, um, outer envelope, uh, seal it. The stamp is on it. All you need to do is to sign it, and that's in the back of the envelope. You just sign it, send it in, and your vote will be counted. It's simple as long as you follow the rules. It's not simple if you don't, because ballots will be tossed. In some states, if you do it wrong, they'll call you to try to correct it. But the easiest thing is just do it right. It isn't that difficult.

And, um, Tony, what about people that are with disabilities that are worried to go, you know, they haven't, they're not doing the mail-in, they want to go vote in person but they're nervous about the COVID What advice do you have for them?

Well, I would advise them to go prior to Election Day. You can vote anywhere in the country now. I think Ted can correct me if I'm wrong, but you can vote anywhere in the country now, today, tomorrow, during the week. As you get closer to Election Day, the crowds are going to be bigger, right? And so wear a mask. Hopefully others will wear a mask as well. But you can do the drop boxes as Ted has talked about. But that's the way to vote if, if you are worried about COVID if you're worried about Um, anything other than that, uh, is to vote prior to Election Day. If you have to do Election Day, just make sure you wear your mask to protect yourself. That's really important.

Yeah, that is. Um, you know, Ted gave me great advice. My show, believe it or not, next week is what? It's on Election Day. So we're trying to think, well, what could we do to help, help you people with disabilities that are having any type of issue with, as Ted said, voter suppression or, you know, just, just a hard— some issue where you can't vote. So Perry Jude Radesik, who you all know, she's on the show every week. She is the CEO of Disability Rights Pennsylvania, Disability Rights, and as the CEO of Disability Rights of PA, she is the whole state, and she is protection and advocacy. She knows the law. She knows disability rights. We are going to have that day, a show where you can call in if you're having any problem at all. We're going to have a line that you can call in because we want to make sure that you get to vote and there isn't a problem, uh, for you with voter suppression of any type. And thanks for that advice, Ted, because that is exactly what we are going to do that day. My pleasure. Tony, I just have a few last questions for you, but one of those is, when you think of voter suppression, does this not, like, take you back in time? I mean, it's so terrible. But doesn't this take you back in time when, you know, people of color had to worry about voting?

Well, I think, Joyce Bender, the one thing to put in perspective is that when people want to suppress the vote, it obviously means that they feel they can't win by just letting the voters vote. So, what they need to do in order to win is to make sure that certain people can't vote, or will not vote, for whatever reason. And so, when you see that happening, you know that they are concerned that you, if you vote, you will basically deny them the win. To me, that's exciting. Okay, so you feel that way, then damn it, I'm going to go out and make sure I can vote. And so that's— we've got to put that in perspective all the time. In Georgia, Ted can talk about it if we have time, we had a situation in the last election in '18 where Stacey Abrams, running for governor in the state of Georgia, She was— she had put on a very, very strong campaign and looked like she was winning. And so, what did the Secretary of State do? They basically went in and eliminated voting locations in the communities of color, and basically said they were doing it because of the ADA, that these places were inaccessible. Well, what they were really doing was using the ADA in order to discriminate against people of color in these areas to suppress the vote. So there's a lot of ways that people have used to try to suppress the vote. One of the things that's going on today is basically to say that if you vote by mail, your vote may not be counted, or it's corrupt, or whatever. That's another means of suppression. And what has happened in some states, like in Texas, the governor has said that there's only one, uh, uh, voting location per county. Well, if you have a county that's 100 miles long, which they do in Texas, that makes it next to impossible that you can vote. But that's all voter suppression. And they feel that if you, as an American citizen, vote, that you may vote them out of office or prevent them from getting into office. And that's a real sad thing that, that is happening in our country today, in that the whole voting process has become so political that you can actually try to deny people the opportunity to vote. I have no trouble with people trying to educate and, you know, go out and do your political thing and convince people to do what? Knock on doors, make phone calls, do all those things that are very legit in regards to getting people to vote your way. But if you're actually out there trying to prevent people from voting, which is voter suppression, then that tells me that you're against our whole system of government that we've created, one of the most dynamic systems in the world that we've created to permit people to have their voice. And, and that's— it's sad, but it's happening. And what we just have to do is, you know, like Ted said earlier, is if you want to vote, make sure you have a plan, and then implement your plan in time to get it done. And that's what will beat voter suppression.

Oh, such good advice. Such good advice. Well, sadly, we have come to the end of the show, but I just want to remind you to share this podcast. Get it out everywhere so people hear what Tony and Ted had to say. And the more people you share this with, the more people will vote. Tony, do you have a last message for our listeners?

Yes, Joyce Bender, it's a 4-letter word: V-O-T-E. Vote. It's critical for our community. It's critical for each and every one of you. So vote. Really, really important. Thank you, Joyce Bender.

Thank you, Tony and Ted. And you know what, Tony? I'm going to take one of your sayings that I quote frequently, and I'm just going to edit it. You're going to love this, Tony. Tony says, when you get a chance to take the podium, speak up. He probably shouldn't have taught me that because I speak up all the time, but I'm going to change it. When you get a chance to vote, vote, vote, vote, vote. This is Joyce Bender.

And Joyce, Joyce, yeah, make a plan to vote. I can't stress that enough. Think ahead, make a plan to vote, and if you, if you come across the barrier, go to iwillvote.com.

Okay, you got that? iwillvote.com. And we'll talk about that next week also. This is Joyce Bender, America's Voice, telling you and everyone listening, get out and Vote. Talk to you next week. For those of you that have any questions or issues with voting, call in. Talk to you then.

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