When: Wed., Oct. 26, 7-8:20 pm (Eastern Time)
Individuals with disabilities face many barriers in exercising their voting rights. These barriers include problems with accessible ballot marking devices (BMD), poll workers not knowing how to interact properly with blind voters, concerns of secrecy when BMD print ballots are of a different size and content than hand-marked ballots, and a lack of accessible ways to mark and return absentee/by-mail ballots.
Individuals with disabilities also have rights under the law to accessible voting.
Please join us for a timely and important webinar that will discuss these barriers and voting accessibility rights, and how individuals with disabilities can protect their rights to accessible voting. As always, ASL and captioning will be provided.
Panelists:
Presenters:
- Lou Ann Blake, Director of Research Programs, National Federation of the Blind
- Alyssa Fieo, Education Attorney/Assistant Public Defender, Maryland Office of the Public Defender
Moderator:
Fred B. Brown, Professor of Law and Director of the Graduate Tax Program, University of Baltimore School of Law
Panelists Biographies:
Lou Ann Blake is director of research programs for the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), where she has worked since 2005. Ms. Blake has served as principal investigator of the NFB’s HAVA training/technical assistance grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Currently, she manages a subcontract with NDRN to provide training and technical assistance on issues experienced by blind voters to P&A system voting advocates. She is responsible for working with election technology developers, voting rights advocates, and elections officials to ensure that the election process is accessible to blind and low-vision voters. She has spoken on voting-related issues before the National Council on Disability, the National Association of State Election Directors, the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Election Law, and the National Commission on Voting Rights.
Alyssa Fieo worked for 20 years at Disability Rights Maryland, advocating on behalf of adults and children with disabilities. Alyssa spent ten of those years working on voting issues impacting voters with disabilities with the goal of increasing participation in the voting process and addressing barriers to voting. Alyssa is now an education attorney with the Maryland Office of the Public Defender.
Fred Brown is a Professor of Law and Director of the Graduate Tax Program at the University of Baltimore School of law. Fred teaches in the areas of federal income taxation and business associations law, and has published books and articles on matters concerning corporate taxation, international taxation, fundamental income tax features such as realization and nonrecognition, as well as the intersection of tax policy with social policy issues. Before joining the faculty at the University of Baltimore School of Law, Fred practiced tax law with the firm of Shaw, Pittman, Potts and Trowbridge in Washington, D.C. Previously, he was an acting assistant professor at the New York University School of Law’s Graduate Tax Program. Fred currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Peaces of Me Foundation. He has also served on the Board of Trustees of the Greenspring Montessori School, holding the positions of board chair, vice chair and secretary.