Hotline reopens for voters with disabilities seeking help filling and returning ballots

Disability advocates announced Thursday they’ve opened their phone hotline and a new website for people with disability-related voting problems to get assistance and report issues in the run-up to the Nov. 3 midterm election.

Disability Rights Oregon has opened its voter hotline for every election for many years, according to Tom Stenson, the group’s deputy legal director. Stenson’s among those who answer calls to the hotline.

“The number one thing people call about is they don’t know what their rights are,” Stenson said.

Voters with blindness or low vision have called to see if it is legal for someone to help fill out their ballot and return it for them (the answer is yes, besides the signature) or if there is an alternative way to fill out and cast their ballot that protects their privacy. For that, Stenson said, voters with limited or no vision can call their county clerk and arrange to vote at the clerk’s office via a computer tablet that reads out loud the ballot options and allows voice selection. Clerks can also bring tablets to voters at their homes if needed.

And people who have lost mobility in an arm or hand have called with concerns about whether their ballot could be disqualified because their signature will look different than in the past.

“So much of our election security is tied to signatures, so we explain to them how to do their signature,” Stenson said. He advises them to contact their county elections office, where they can register a name stamp or other mark as their signature.

If voters are not being helped by county clerks, are calling to report ballot boxes that are inaccessible and/or voters are being kept from submitting their ballot in any way, Disability Rights Oregon will contact the Secretary of State’s Elections Office and help file complaints.

Stenson said there have been fewer calls this year than in recent years, but it tends to ramp up in the week ahead of an election. He said at this point, with just six days to Nov. 3, he advises every caller to get their ballot to a box, and not to put it into the mail.