We interviewed Marty who works at a nonprofit serving the rural disability community about helping people vote. She talks through the unique challenges their community faces and how she’s made inroads in awareness and education of those with local elected officials and election offices
“You told me the site was just going to check my voter registration, but now my polling place has changed!”
“And now my parents are upset too because they’ve always voted there.”
Marty told me how she’d gotten this call from one of the members of the disability community her organization serves. She’d helped him look up his voter registration for the first time in years the day before through our Nonprofit VOTE digital portal. And the next day he got a letter in the mail saying his polling place changed. He was 42 with autism and thought that checking had triggered the change.
He called Marty sounding betrayed, afraid, and angry.
Marty said to him , “Why don’t you bring your parents to the new polling place and I’ll meet you there?”
Marty met him at the new polling place and they practiced voting together, getting to know the location and parking areas. She soothed his fears and explained to him how checking a voter registration and the timing of the polling place change had just happened like that.
He and his parents left, happy and confident knowing that in the upcoming election they knew exactly how and where to vote.
Instead of writing the accusation off as coincidence, Marty was able to turn a potential barrier to voting into a learning opportunity. And her ability to do this isn’t just for individuals wanting to vote, but also for those who run and design elections.
Building Bridges to the Disability Community with Election Officials
On paper, Marty is actually the Assistant Director at CILSCPA, which serves the disability community in rural southeastern PA. Her job is to “go to meetings in the seven counties CILSCPA region to understand who’s doing what, where certain pockets of money and resources are, and who we can collaborate with”.
But as she shared how she’d integrated voter engagement in her role, it was clear how actually integrating voter engagement had made her even more effective at her job.
She told me how she’d partnered with the County Board of Elections to bring voting machines and sample ballots to the parent teacher conference at one of the schools. People who were blind, deaf, with intellectual disabilities, and/or had low literacy were all able to touch, see, feel the voting machines and ballot, instead of trying to figure it out on the day of. By doing this, they weren’t just making it easier to vote, it was also a statement. We care about your vote and we want you to cast it with confidence and dignity.
She said that while participating in the Nonprofit VOTE field program, they’d become better friends with the Board of Elections.
“…They’re calling us to say, ‘oh we think this is gonna work, but will you guys come and look at it?’ Or ‘will you listen to our plan and tell us where the flaws might be?’”
And one of their county election offices had asked their organization to give a disability awareness and sensitivity training “so that the whole county could be more welcoming to people that might have a disability.”
The trust she had with these election officials allowed her to be in these spaces where the disability experience and perspective could be more represented.
Information as a Bridge to Connection
One time Marty was invited to see an accessible voting machine that one had to stand to use, which wasn’t super accessible.
“You just don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know who to call” she said understandingly.
“You just don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know who to call”
Her tone was simple and straightforward. It said come be curious; understanding isn’t something we gatekeep – it’s something we want to share.
By building trust with their local election officials, they felt comfortable opening up about what they might not know. And she did the same when helping her community members with disabilities vote.
Faced with overwhelming sources of information while limited by who they feel comfortable asking, misinformation could spread easily. She told me that the biggest reason around voting hesitation was “where does that information go? is it secure?”
“There’s a big distrust of government. And it’s hard to know who to trust and who to believe on what topic with so much information… Sometimes they don’t want to tell anybody that they don’t know how to vote. There’s a kind of voting shame.”
“Sometimes they don’t want to tell anybody that they don’t know how to vote. There’s a kind of voting shame.”
And that distrust and shame contributed to a rumor spreading that the government sold voter registration info.
But through support groups regularly hosted at CILSCPA, community spaces built on trust, they were able to empower people with the right information.
At the end of the day Marty sees this as beyond correcting rumors, but helping people live independently and make an informed decision about whether they wanted to vote.
Making Information Access Systematic
Before the expectations and materials of the Nonprofit VOTE field program and being a part of the cohort run by the Housing Alliance of PA, Marty shared how she’d built up all this trust, but voter engagement hadn’t been systematic.
“Now we’re the people that they’re calling to say ‘the library’s doing a presentation on voting rights. Would you all wanna come and talk to make sure that people with disabilities are represented?’”
Since then, Marty suggested at a county-wide health and human service council meeting for staff with one-on-one meetings to share this information about secure voter registration information. While they’re there to get assistance on heating bills, there’s already a connection of trust to be an accurate source of information.
Through her experience directly helping people with disabilities vote, she built up the expertise that makes her a great bridge builder between the disability community and their broader community. We at Nonprofit VOTE celebrate Marty and the power of nonprofits to increase access of underrepresented communities to participating in our democracy.
Want to get started building influence with your local elected officials? Start with our advocacy guide here!
Do you resonate with Marty’s work helping people overcome barriers? Read about Julie who brings joy to voter engagement and meets people where they’re at.
Support the work:
At Nonprofit VOTE, everyday to be supporting the at-its-heart visionary work that Marty and others like her are doing. If you want to help support this work through monetary means – go here to support CILSCPA and here for Nonprofit VOTE.
