http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/19/nyregion/19vote.html
The
New York Times
May
19, 2004
Disabled Protesters
Block Doors at End of Hearing on Elections
By
Al Baker
ALBANY,
May 18 - Disabled protesters used their wheelchairs to block the doors after a
panel of lawmakers working to overhaul New York's aging election system ended a
meeting on Tuesday without discussing ways to make polling places more
accessible to the disabled.
As
the lawmakers gathered their papers to leave about 2 p.m., dozens of protesters
moved swiftly to trap them inside a small conference room on the seventh floor
of the Legislative Office Building, shouting: "Voting is a civil right!
Give us access now!'' About half an hour later, state troopers arrived at the
scene and cleared the exits so that people, including a pregnant woman, could
leave.
Two
of the disabled protesters were charged with disorderly conduct, a violation,
Sgt. Mark W. Bellinger said. "They blocked
access to the office doors here,'' said the sergeant, who added that no one was
hurt. "If there's a fire alarm, it would hinder
the safe evacuation of the building."
Seated
in their wheelchairs in a hallway after the room had been cleared, those
charged identified themselves as Susan Stahl and Barbara Knowlen,
both of Rochester.
They
and other protesters said they had been disappointed that the legislators, on a
bipartisan joint committee studying ways to fulfill the requirements of the
Help America Vote Act, had yet to publicly discuss access to voting machines
for the disabled. They want at least one voting machine in each polling place
to have an audio prompt for the blind and an attachment allowing quadriplegics
to cast votes with their breath, using a sip-and-puff system.
Mike
Godino of the Queens Independent Living Center Inc.,
who helped organize the protest, said the Assembly had ideas on the matter that
might work.
"They're
not providing us the ability to access the machines," Mr. Godino said. "We wanted to get them to come to the
table and start to discuss it. They've been ignoring it and they said that
today was supposed to be the last meeting."
Barbara
Bartoletti, legislative director of the League of
Women Voters, said the frustration level among the protesters had been rising
for quite a while. Locked in the room with others, she
said that Tuesday's protest probably went on a bit too long.
"But
they did get their point across," she said.
Copyright
2004 The New York Times Company
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