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Feel the Power of the Disability Vote - Ana Acton
Growing up in the small Northern California town of North San Juan, Ana Acton never imagined that someday she would become a star disability advocate, fighting for the rights of people with disabilities to vote. Ana was not born with a disability. She joined the nearly 20% of the U.S. population of disabled Americans when she broke her back in a car accident at the age of fourteen. After living on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) while she finished high school and college, she hated the restrictions and rules that a life on benefits prescribes and wanted to work.
After a few jobs, she found her place as the Systems Change Advocate at the FREED Center for Independent Living in Grass Valley, California. She found her passion as a voting rights advocate. She co-chairs the California Foundation for Independent Living Center’s (CFILC) Systems Change Network Voting Committee with Sandy Chu, Southern California Rehabilitation Services. Ana also serves on the California Secretary of State Voting Accessibility Advisory Committee.
According to Ana, only 35% of eligible voters with disabilities voted in the 2004 election. Ana has vowed to change that through her work on committees and at FREED. The recipe for change involves a multi-layered approach, including voter education, training poll workers and election officials about voting machines and the needs of people with disabilities, producing voter’s rights brochures, increasing the accessibility of polling places, enhancing the accessibility of the California Secretary of State’s website, and much more.
Voter education is high on the list of priorities. Ana and her fellow committee members have helped in the development of an Easy Voter Guide http://www.easyvoter.org/ for Californians that is in simple, plain language (as well as multiple languages). They have also targeted staff members at Centers for Independent Living to convince them to take a pro-active stance in registering their consumers to vote. She is quick to remind people that they can register until October 23rd and still vote in this year’s mid-term elections. Ana does not believe that it is her job to tell people which candidates to vote for or how to vote on propositions or initiatives, rather it is more important that people with disabilities understand that they have more opportunities to vote than ever before and should take full advantage and make their voices heard.
Many Centers are now offering demonstrations on the new accessible voting machines, so that voters with disabilities can familiarize themselves with the technology before Election Day. Also, the California Secretary of State website http://www.ss.ca.gov/ is a place for voters to find out which voting machine is being used in their county and to try out an online demonstration. Ana is also a strong advocate for individuals with disabilities to know their rights. With all the controversies over the new technologies, it is more important than ever that people know what they should be entitled to on November 7th. She also encourages people to take advantage of early voting access when polling places are less hectic and people that may need additional time will not feel hurried.
For Ana, voting is the best way to effect long-term change. If people with disabilities are unhappy with the current state of their lives, the programs they may access, their lack of control over their daily lives; she feels that the simple act of voting is the easiest way to take back some control. Ana believes that if the disability community organized and were fully enfranchised, they could sway any election. However, it is more than that- Ana knows voting is a way to build power. If we are ever going to make elected officials accountable to the issues that concern the disability community, we must get out and vote.