Another win in federal court for those fighting the voter suppression inherent in various GOP policy pushes was recently recorded.
An Indiana federal court temporarily rolled back requirements in the state that voters with limited abilities to read or write rely on a traveling group of election officials for assistance with completing their absentee ballots. The preliminary injunction issued by the court, which emerged after a similar move covering the May 2022 primaries, will cover this year’s November elections. The services of the election officials participating in the traveling board will remain available, but disabled voters seeking assistance are now also permitted to obtain assistance from other individuals they might select, except for a small group of categories including bosses and union representatives.
This new court action is connected to a previous lawsuit from the American Council of the Blind of Indiana, the Indiana Protection and Advocacy Services Commission, and three blind voters residing in Indiana. The case alleged that the legal standards for voters with difficulties reading or writing who seek to vote in Indiana were discriminatory and violated legislation including the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act. Litigation over the question of determining the most appropriate remedy for the issues presented by the previous absentee voting system for blind and low vision voters will continue, but in the meantime, the court also partially granted a motion from plaintiffs’ side for summary judgment, the voting rights organization Democracy Docket explains. Since “Indiana’s absentee voting procedures currently discriminate against voters with print disabilities in violation of the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act, some remedy is necessary,” the court said.
Developments in this case mirror those in a court challenge out of Wisconsin, where disabled voters brought a lawsuit over the ramifications of a ruling from the state Supreme Court stating that only individual voters can return their absentee ballots in person to local officials. Not everyone is physically capable of doing so, and assistance options were previously available without any real-world evidence ever emerging of a systematic mishandling of the set-up. There was no widespread fraud or election malfeasance because of disabled voters receiving help in returning their ballots. A federal judge ruled in favor of those seeking the opportunity for assistance in giving their completed ballots to authorities. In another case, an Arizona law imposing strict requirements for proving citizenship was recently paused. “HB 2243 essentially allows anyone, without evidence, to simply give a list of names of people who are purportedly not citizens to the county recorders, thus triggering a check that can lead to improperly canceled voter registrations and potential investigation and prosecution of eligible and registered Arizonans,” that original lawsuit says.
