'They're Taking Us Backwards' : Tightened Regulations Interfere With Voting For People With Disabilities

Arlington TX

25 March, 2022

7:15 PM

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By Emily Wolf, Fort Worth Report March 24, 2022 Charlotte Stewart has voted like clockwork every year since she was 21.This March, at 70 years old, she missed an election for the first time. Stewart didn't forget; she applied for a mail-in ballot, her preferred method of voting for the past five years. But the ballot never came, and she was turned away at a polling place on Election Day. "They told me I could get a provisional ballot, but I will not be able to get mail-in ballots for the rest of the year," she said. Stewart is physically disabled and uses a scooter to travel. As executive director of REACH, Inc., a Dallas-Fort Worth resource center on independent living, she's intimately familiar with the ways in which disability can complicate normal life tasks. Using mail-in ballots has enabled her to vote in past elections without having to navigate inaccessible polling stations. But a new voting law passed by the Texas Legislature last year has made voting by mail increasingly difficult. An analysis by the Associated Press showed that about 13% of all mail-in ballots cast in the March 1 primary were rejected. In Tarrant County, 8% failed to pass muster. To read the full article, click here. Fort Worth Report is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that produces factual, in-depth journalism about city and county government, schools, healthcare, business, and arts and culture in Tarrant County. Always free to read; subscribe to newsletters, read coverage or support our newsroom at fortworthreport.org.