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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 e-mail 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 Kirchenstein is Director of Leal and Advocacy Services and she joins us now. Thanks very much for being here.
Thank you for inviting me.
So what is your reaction to the judge now granting voters with disabilities the ability to cast ballots electronically?
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.
That's the piece that's missing. That's for another day when we go through to the final trial which will be sometime off in the future certainly far past November.
So why was the suit brought in the first place?
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.
We at D.R.W. 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, the Federal Constitution.
All of which lead to this result.
How many fellows in Wisconsin could this affect?
No one really tracks that exactly but there's people with disabilities generally in the nation 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.
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?
Well 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 individuals who are in the military or living abroad.
As a matter of fact, up until recently in the last 10, 12 years everybody could ask for a ballot to be emailed.
And so do voters know that they can do this now or how is that kind of messaging going to go out?
We hope so. We're going to be working on education measures.
The WEC will be working on education measures. We hope that the individual clerks will as well 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 support but it's the clerks that have to do this.
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.
Well return it. 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.
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.
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 market 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.
It could still be difficult I imagine for some voters with disabilities to be able to even get it in a mailbox or a drop box.
Well we also have some ability to get an accommodation to have someone assist by putting it in the mailbox.
That was another battle from a while ago, years ago, that drop boxes are now. Not only drop boxes are available but you can have someone assist you and put your ballot in the box.
Alright well we will be watching this as it moves forward. Kid Kirchenstein, thanks very much.
Thank you.
Is that software?
Yeah, okay.
Most folks with some kind of disability are able to get software and get a computer and get software now whether they need to use the keys with their hands.
If it's a physical type disability they can use a pointer stick or something and then there are lots of different types of software that will take a printed word and read it to you and help you mark your ballot.
So that part can be done with simple software.
What's the reaction of people that you serve?
Well, holding on with painted breath, it's not a perfect solution. I don't know if there is a perfect solution but in the end there will be a better solution than this.
This is a temporary measure that will help some people but maybe still be difficult for others.
Every step helps. It should have been done decades ago.
Chipping away, yeah. Alright, well thank you so much.
Thank you.