8/25/25 - Mail-in voting, freedom of whim, and homespun ramps

Goor morning!

I'm going back to tutoring this week. So these newsletters will be going out a little later for the time being – from 1 PM to about 2:3o PM Eastern each weekday.

Here are your three disability-related links for this Monday ...

Attacks on Vote-By-Mail, Voting Machines Threaten Disabled Voters

Jess Davidson, American Association of People with Disabilities - August 22, 2025

"Mail-in voting helps people with all sorts of disabilities. For example, a wheelchair user in a rural area may not be able to secure accessible transportation to the polls. Crowded polling places may be unsafe and inaccessible to voters who are immunocompromised. A voter with an intellectual disability may prefer to vote from home in order to spend more time reading and understanding the ballot. People experiencing long-term hospital stays or living in nursing homes may be unable to leave their beds. These are realities disabled voters face every election. Many disabled people in circumstances like these will no longer be able to participate in our democracy if the proposals Trump has threatened take effect ... Voting by mail is safe, secure, and has been used effectively in the United States for decades. Claims of fraud have been repeatedly disproven by exhaustive research and rejected by courts. "

Here is a followup to Thursday's Disability Thinking Weekday, which focused on President Trump's threat to shut down mail-in voting. This AAPD statement breaks down the issue, explaining why mail-in voting and accessible voting machines are important to disabled people, and answering many of the myths and fears President Trump is fanning.

Spontaneity Is a Stranger I Know

Grace Dow, Grace Dow Writes - August 16, 2025

"Spontaneity doesn’t really exist when you are disabled. I have to make sure I have enough medications. I have to schedule medical appointments weeks if not months, in advance, and I have to make sure a family member or my personal care assistant can take me where I want to go.  I can’t go to a movie or a new restaurant at the last minute."

This is an under-appreciated part of being disabled. It's not just being prevented from doing fun things entirely. That's bad enough when it occurs. It's also being able to do things, but having to plan for them far in advance, in great detail, and never being able to do them on a whim. That kind of improvisation is impossible for many of us, and something most people really do forget and take for granted.

Incidentally, the need to plan ahead and make complex arrangements to do simple things is another reason why having the option of mail-in voting is so important for so many disabled people.

The Strange Beauty of New York’s Bodega Ramps

Michael Kimmelman, New York Times - August 13, 2025

"'What’s beautiful about cities are the details that illustrate the care a community shows for its residents,' Xian Horn, a disability rights advocate and journalist in New York, told me. I had called her for a thumbs up or down on the ramps ... 'People say they can’t afford to make their businesses and other places accessible and welcoming to everybody because it’s too expensive,' Horn said. 'Assuming they’re safe, bodega ramps prove there is always a way. They should be celebrated.'"

More disability journalism needs to be done this way, with creative visuals and presentation. I would be interested though in hearing feedback from anyone with vision disabilities about whether this format is accessible.

On the topic itself ... Should we be "celebrating" these ramps for being charming, retro, good-faith efforts? Or, should we be more assertive in pointing out that some if not most makeshift ramps are just as inaccessible as steps, and even dangerous? Maybe we can do both.

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