Give Us the Ballot

 By Christina Clift

On Tuesday, November 3, 2020 Americans will once again have the opportunity to decide who will lead our country for the next four years by casting their vote.  No matter if you decide to step into a polling booth during early voting or on election day or vote by absentee ballot, you have the right to ensure that it can be done in secret and independently.  

In 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr delivered his speech “Give Us the Ballot” at the Lincoln Memorial which advocated for giving African Americans the right to vote in the United States.  His speech is as relevant today as it was sixty-three years ago.  In recent years voter suppression has become more rampant through passage of voter identification laws, closing polling locations, and by continuing to deny people with disabilities the right to a fully accessible voting process.  

People with disabilities have the same right to cast their ballot independently and in secret, however barriers often prevent us from doing so.  During the August 6th election I visited my local polling location in Millington.  I signed in and notified the polling workers that I would require an audible ballot due to being blind.  They assured me that it would be handled.  Of course, I knew better since almost every time I go to vote it has never gone smoothly and I was not wrong this time.  

Once I inserted my card nobody started speaking in my headphones.  After working with the polling location judge for almost an hour, I still was not able to vote using an audio ballot.  So, I agreed to have sighted assistance.  Since my mother accompanied me to vote herself, she assisted me to cast my ballot.  Luckily, we voted for the same people.  

The polling location judge said, “I knew that you would be coming because you come every election and I made sure we were ready, but I wasn’t expecting it not to work.”

Being denied the right to cast my own ballot myself makes me feel that my vote isn’t important enough to ensure that polling workers receive adequate training on how to set up the machine or program the card.  Thankfully, I am stubborn enough to keep trying but many people aren’t.  They just decide not to vote.  Now more than ever you must vote like your life depends on it because given the COVID-19 pandemic it does.

"Give us the ballot and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights ...Give us the ballot and we will no longer plead to the federal government for passage of affordable healthcare laws…...Give us the ballot and we will fill our legislative halls with men and women of good will ...Give us the ballot and we will place judges on the benches of our nation who will do justly and love mercy ...Give us the ballot and we will quietly and nonviolently, without rancor or bitterness, implement ...

Curtis Tillman adds to Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech “The Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision of June 22, 1999 and full implementation of the ADA.”

In a recent move the state of Tennessee provided an accessible method for blind individuals to cast their absentee ballot.  This was made possible by the efforts of advocates from Disability Rights of Tennessee, the National Federation of the Blind, and other advocacy organizations continuously demanding accessibility in voting.  

Now don’t get me wrong the process they put in place isn’t perfect, but it is a good first step.  Currently if you request an accessible absentee ballot, they will send it to you through email.  The ballot is a completable PDF document that blind individuals can fill out using their computer without assistance from anyone.  However, here is where it becomes inaccessible, you have to print and sign your ballot.  This requires sighted assistance.  As a result, your vote is no longer private and can’t be done independently.  It also leaves out people who do not have a computer or internet access.  

Accessibility must be ensured throughout all methods of voting.  Polling stations must be accessible to people who use mobility devices, machines need to be in working order and accessible to people who can not read regular print and adaptable for people who can not reach or touch the screen from a standing position, and absentee voting processes must be made accessible from requesting the ballot, to filling it out, signing it, and sending it back through the mail.  If one of these things are not accessible then voting is not a right that all Americans can exercise.  

Wouldn’t it be great if we could all cast our vote by dialing in and pushing a number for our candidates or to receive an absentee ballot we could do it online and sign it electronically?  Now I know that many people worry about voter fraud, but there has to be a simpler way for us all to vote while ensuring that it is secure from threats and fraud both within and outside our borders.

It will be up to all people with and without disabilities to demand that our government “give us the ballot” and to ensure that no matter who you are that it is an accessible process for all to participate in.  

“So, pack your dinner and maybe a breakfast because the wait might be long…but get out and vote” is a line from former First Lady Michelle Obama’s convention speech given on August 17, 2020.  

As for myself, I will once again return to my polling location and hopefully the promises made by my polling location judge will come true that I will be able to cast my vote in secret and independently in November.  

Just like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. you can demand that the government “give us the ballot” by voting, so make sure that you are registered and know where you can go vote because now more than ever that right is not secure and can be taken away from those in power.  You can call the Shelby County Election Commission at (901) 222-1200 or by visiting govotetn.com.

Can dogs fly?

Delta Airlines and Service Animals on flights

By Christina Clift

In an ideal world my service animal would fetch the newspaper, bring me the remote control, and always be on his best behavior.  He would always be glad to see me, take himself for a walk, clean up his own fur, never bark at the postal carrier, and obey my every command.  Finally, he would accompany me everywhere I want to go with no difficulty.  With Delta Airline’s new policy, service animals will not be able to accompany their handlers as freely as they did in the past.  No hopping on a last minute flight.

Starting on March 1, 2018 Delta will require 48-hour notice that a service animal will be traveling with you as well as a variety of documentation to prove that your service animal is well behaved and actually a service animal. 

But doesn’t that violate the law? Doesn’t that infringe on the rights of people with disabilities to travel freely? 

Well, the answer is yes and no.  It depends on which law a person is looking at. A Service Animal as Defined by Title II and Title III of the  Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)  states that any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability.

These tasks can include pulling a wheelchair, retrieving dropped items, alerting a person to a sound, reminding a person to take medication, or pressing an elevator button.  Emotional support animals, comfort animals, and therapy dogs are not service animals under Title II and Title III of the ADA.  

Why not?  

Well, it is because the work or tasks performed by a service animal must be directly related to an individual’s disability. It does not matter if a person has a note from a doctor that states that the person has a disability and needs to have the animal for emotional support. A doctor’s letter does not turn an animal into a service animal.  On the other hand, the Air Carrier Act (ACA) broadens the definition of a service animal to include emotional support animals, comfort animals, and therapy animals.

Under the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA) a service animal is any animal that is individually trained or able to provide assistance to a person with a disability; or any animal that assists persons with disabilities by providing emotional support. Documentation and 48-hour advance notification can be required of passengers needing to travel with an emotional support or psychiatric service animal.  So under this law, Delta Airlines is well within their right to change policy regarding these service animals.

Things to Know

Which service animals are allowed in the cabin? 

A wide variety of service animals are permitted in the cabin portion of the aircraft flying to and within the United States. Airlines may exclude animals that: 

Are too large or heavy to be accommodated in the cabin, Pose a direct threat to the health or safety of others, Cause a significant disruption of cabin service, or are prohibited from entering a foreign country. 

Airlines are never required to accept snakes, reptiles, ferrets, rodents, sugar gliders, and spiders.

How do airlines determine whether an animal is a service animal?

Airlines can determine whether an animal is a service animal or pet by:

The credible verbal assurances of an individual with a disability using the animal, Looking for physical indicators such as the presence of a harness or tags, Requiring documentation for psychiatric support animals and emotional support animals, and Observing the behavior of animals. 

What kind of documentation can be required of persons traveling with emotional support animals and psychiatric service animals?

Airlines may require documentation that is not older than one year from the date of your scheduled initial flight that states: 

You have a mental or emotional disability that is recognized in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM);

You need your emotional support or psychiatric support animal as an accommodation for air travel or for activity at your destination, the individual providing the assessment is a licensed mental health professional and the passenger is under his or her professional care, and the licensed health care professional’s credentials.

Tips for Traveling with a Service Animal

At the airport:

•  If your animal needs to relieve itself, please ask an airport or airline professional for the location of the nearest service animal relief area.
•  Memphis International Airport has an area to accommodate service animals.

Onboard the aircraft:

• Your animal must be permitted to accompany you in the space under the seat in front of you.
• Certain small animals may be permitted to sit on your lap, if it can be done so safely. 
• Your animal cannot block a space that must remain unobstructed for safety reasons, for example an aisle or access to an emergency exit).
• An airline is not required to upgrade you to a different class of service to accommodate your animal. 
• Airlines cannot refuse to allow your animal on board because it makes other passengers or flight crew uncomfortable. 
• Your animal must behave properly. An animal that engages in disruptive behavior for example barking or snarling, running around, and jumping onto other passengers, etc. without being provoked will not be accepted as a service animal. 
• For a flight that is scheduled for eight hours or longer, airlines may require documentation stating that your animal will not need to relieve itself, or can do so in a sanitary way. 

Traveling outside of the United States? Here are a few things to keep in mind if you’re planning to fly outside of the United States with your service animal. 

·        Foreign airlines operating to and from the United States are only required to accept dogs. 

·        U.S. airlines traveling to foreign countries are subject to the requirements of that foreign country regarding acceptance of service animals; not all countries permit service animals from other foreign countries. 

·        Check to ensure whether your destination country permits your animal and any other requirements to enter and exit legally. 

Encounter A Problem? 

If you believe your rights under the Air Carrier Access Act are being or have been violated, ask to speak with a Complaints Resolution Official (CRO). A CRO is the airline’s expert on disability accommodation issues. Airlines are required to make one available to you, at no cost, in person at the airport or by telephone during the times they are  operating.

So what do disability rights organizations think about Delta Airline’s policy?  

The National Federation of the Blind said in a recent press announcement 

“We are particularly troubled by the requirement that guide dog users submit paperwork to Delta forty-eight hours before flying. Travelers without guide dogs are not required to plan their travel forty-eight hours in advance. Furthermore, guide dog users will no longer be able to fly Delta in family, medical, or other emergencies. We believe that this forty-eight hour requirement is both unnecessary and unlawful.”  

To read Delta’s new policy you can visit https://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/traveling-with-us/special-travel-needs/service-animals.html. 

The best solution to clearing up the confusion on the definition of what a service animal is will be when changes are made to the ADA.  Until then it’s up to the service animal or support animal handler to educate themselves on the laws that pertain to their four-footed companions and where they can go and your responsibilities.

    

ATTENTION BLIND AND LOW-VISION STUDENTS!

National Federation of the Blind Engineering Quotient (EQ) Program

Are you or do you know a blind or low-vision teen who wants to spend their summer learning, meeting new people, and having a great adventure? Join the National Federation of the Blind at our NFB EQ program. NFB EQ is a jam-packed week of fun and learning. Participants spend each day engaged in activities designed to strengthen their knowledge of engineering as well as their problem-solving abilities. In the evenings, participants hang out with the 29 other teen participants while exploring the local community and participating in various recreational activities. Throughout the week, participants will forge new friendships while increasing their engineering knowledge, problem-solving abilities, self-confidence, and independence. 

TO LEARN MORE AND TO APPLY, VISIT

https://nfb.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=9954&qid=2126807

THE SPECS

WHO: 30 blind and low-vision teens currently enrolled in grades 9-12 in the United States.

WHAT: A week long summer engineering program for blind and low-vision teens.

WHEN: Participants will travel to Baltimore on July 29 and they will travel back home on August 4.

WHERE: The National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.

WHY: To meet new people, learn new things, and have an exciting adventure!

HOW: APPLY NOW! APPLICATIONS ARE DUE MAY 1, 2018.

HOW MUCH: There is no registration fee for this program. Visit our frequently asked questions web page for more details:

https://nfb.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=9955&qid=2126807

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• To be eligible to apply students must: be enrolled in grades 9-12 during the 2017-2018 school year in a school (public, private, charter, residential, or home school) in the United States, be blind or have low-vision, and be available to attend the entire program.
• Participant's transportation to and from the program will be arranged by the National Federation of the Blind. Students will travel to Baltimore on Sunday and will travel home on the following Saturday.
• This is a residential program; students will stay in dormitories at the National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute and all meals will be provided.
•  In the evenings, after the conclusion of the instructional day, students will be engaged in various social and recreational activities.

WHAT ARE PEOPLE SAYING ABOUT EQ?

"NFB EQ gave me more confidence to keep doing what I want--no one can stop me! The program opened my eyes to even more options in the field [of engineering] and it gave me some confidence that I can do some mechanical stuff that I didn't think I could do before." - Michael, Texas

"At the program, I learned that there is accessible equipment--I can use equipment that is close to what sighted people use, like Braille rulers and click rules. At school the tools for measuring in science aren't always accessible to me." 

- Lilly, Alaska

"I increased my drawing skills at NFB EQ. The tactile drawing board helped me, because I could feel what I drew. Visualizations also have gotten easier [going from drawing to model to prototype]. In engineering, you have to picture an idea in your mind and then draw it before you can build it. When you draw it, you can really see how it's going to come together." 

- Trey, Kentucky

"I am amazed at how the people involved in organizing this program made everything so easy for us. From organizing logistics to making sure the schedule was running smoothly for the students--the whole event was very successful. The staff's warmth and attention to detail really eased my mind and made me feel good about leaving my son at the program for the week." 

- Mark (father), North Carolina

"I was looking for a rigorous, highly academic science program that promoted and modeled independence and the National Federation of the Blind was offering everything I was looking for. Still, I was hesitant. What if it wasn't a good use of my students' resources, or what if they weren't safe? My fears were unwarranted, from start to finish. NFB made the health, safety, academic rigor, social experiences, and general well-being of our students paramount. Every detail was professionally planned and handled, ensuring that every moment, for every student, was as meaningful as it could possibly be." 

- Laura (teacher of the visually impaired), Kentucky

QUESTIONS?

Send them to:

  STEM@nfb.org
(410) 659-9314, extension 2418
National Federation of the Blind
200 East Wells Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1712887. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

The Marrakesh Treaty

The right to knowledge and literacy for the blind is a worldwide priority

By Christina Clift

In 1966 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the international covenant on civil and political rights.  Article 19 addresses the idea that freedom of expression includes the right to information. Specifically it says that everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression and this right shall include the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds regardless of frontiers.  

One critical component is the right to read and manipulate the written word. For the blind, this right has been difficult to achieve, and its full realization and permanency are not yet secured. Besides the obvious barriers limiting our right to read, the inability to physically to read visual print and inaccessible information technology, there is another major barrier to our full enjoyment of the right to access information, and this is copyright laws.

Without an exception or limitation, international law makes it overwhelmingly clear that reproducing a copyrighted work—no matter the kind of copy, violates the exclusive right of the copyright holder to control distribution of their work. So the only way to get around this exclusive right is to ask each copyright holder permission to copy their work in an accessible format. That permission is either granted, which takes a long time, or denied.  

The United States Congress passed an amendment to the United States Copyright Act in 1996, often referred to as the Chaffee Amendment, which includes an exception that permits reproduction of published works into accessible formats such as braille, audio, and accessible electronic texts.  The Chaffee Amendment would not have been possible without the combined efforts of the National Federation of the Blind and the Association of American Publishers.

However the exception in the United States does not address the vast wealth of accessible works throughout the world. It has been estimated that over 95 percent of the world’s works of not been available in accessible formats. International copyright laws have either outright banned the practice of exchanging accessible works over international boarders or have made it extremely difficult to do. 

This phenomenon has been dubbed the “book famine for the blind.” That is why the NFB has partnered with the World Blind Union to put forward an international agreement that would amend international copyright law. The agreement permits exceptions and limitations allowing reproduction of works into accessible formats and allows such accessible works to flow across international borders. 

On June 28, 2013, in Marrakesh, Morocco, an international treaty was born. A treaty holding out the promise to eradicate the book famine for the blind and signaled a global priority on the right to access information, the right to access knowledge and literacy for the world’s blind.

Over the past four years implementing the Marrakesh Treaty has become an official, binding, legal instrument for all the countries that have ratified or acceded to it.  So far, twenty-nine countries have joined the Marrakesh Treaty community by delivering their accession to the World’s Intellectual Property Organization.

One of the countries that is notably absent from the 29 member countries who’ve already ratified the treaty is the United States.  How can the country who led the way in producing accessible book titles at both the governmental and private sectors and who has one of the strongest exceptions to our copyright law permitting the creation of accessible formats not be on that list?  

Well, that is because the United States has signed an intent to ratify the treaty.  We made our intent clear on October 2, 2013 and as of yet have still not ratified the Marrakesh Treaty.  Pursuant to the Constitution, President Obama sent the Marrakesh Treaty for ratification to the U.S. Senate in February 2016.  In the Senate the treaty seemed to have no voiced opposition and in fact, seems to have a majority support. Why hasn’t it been ratified?

After President Obama forwarded the Marrakesh Treaty along with proposed implementing legislation, key copyright stakeholders such as the publishers and the library community expressed their reservations.  They wanted to add amendments to the treaty.  This was the same opposition we met back in 2013. As a result, we had to re-argue the same issues, the same issues that had proposed solutions, and the same issues and solutions that these same key stakeholders had agreed to.

Thanks to the efforts of the NFB these key stakeholders have once again been brought back to the table. The issues have once again been resolved. Now, we have the full support of the American Council of the Blind, the American Foundation for the Blind, The American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers, and many more.  As a result, the legislative language has been submitted to the appropriate Senate committees.  These Senate committees are currently conducting their due diligence, and it is my hope and that of the NFB that the U.S. Senate will ratify the Marrakesh Treaty by the end of the year.

The Marrakesh Treaty will be implemented on a practical level by the Accessible Book Consortium (ABC) that was created by the World’s Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).  The Accessible Book Consortium is a public-private alliance representing key stakeholders. 

ABC has three main objectives. First, to operate the ABC Global Book Service. This is a platform where authorized entities can list and share their accessible titles.  So far, they have acquired 400,000 accessible titles and 130,000 blind individuals from around the world have downloaded titles and are using them.  Second, capacity-building or adding new members and work with existing members to increase the amount of accessible titles. The final objective of the ABC is to promote inclusive publishing.  This means that ABC works with publishers to provide techniques and guidance on how to make books and have them born accessible.  

To that end ABC has several projects in this area including a guide for self-publishing authors on how to make accessible books, creation of a starter kit for accessible publishing, and created a charter of accessible publishing which several publishers and publisher associations have signed indicating their intent to create works that are born accessible.

The Marrakesh Treaty is the first time in human history access to information, the right to knowledge and literacy for the blind is a worldwide priority.  It was NFB founder Jacobus TenBrook who once said “we have a right to live in the world.” Part of that right, and in fact fundamental to it, is the right to access information on terms of equality. We will accept nothing less.