Blind man wants a secret ballot
Monday, November 6.1978
SPRINGFIELD, III. (AP) — Meet Jimmy Hood. Jimmy's on a first-name basis with Illinois politicians to top bottom. He talks about his life. But he won't vote for any of them Nov. 7.
University Daily Kansan
Jim-that's what everybody calls him - is blind. He operates the Capitol newsstand in the marble-floored room here, selling candy, cigarettes and condiments. He is appointed, the bangers-on and the countenance tourists and students who stand and wawk.
**waa** a statue of Abraham Lincoln overlooking each sale, Jimmy, 33, tells the politicians he is denied a secret ballot because he must either go alone in a booth designed for the sighted, ask a friend's help to enter, or judge of different parties do his voting.
THIS ELECTION Day, Jimmy has plenty of company. Nearly 500,000 legally blind Americans face a special problem, and no one knows of them don't vote because of the hardship.
The choices dummy faces are typical of those throughout the country. Since 1920, most states have followed New Jersey's lead and adopted laws that allow a friend, or at least a family member, to assist a blind voter, rather than insisting on official help. But a handful still demand official observation. A secret ballot is guaranteed only by a vote in an official board, Conn., where Braille stickers are available to be placed on voting machines.
Jimmy, blind from birth, says Braille ballots are the logical answer. Braille ballots are hard to read and blind. The ballots have perforations or raised lines to be skimmed over and read by
BUT THERE is little pressure for that, and this is not a cut-and-dried issue, even among the blind. James Gassel, chief of the Special Collections at the Library of the Blind, says many blind people do not want expensive special measures. He said Braille balloons would appear patronizing to them, a suggestion "that the blind are likely to be taken advantage of if assisted by."
"We are worried about confidentiality if we have to have strangers in there," Gashel says, but he says most who suggest Braille need to themselves himself. "The blind don't want them."
PERHAPS THAT is so for Gassel and he says, that most blind voters. But Marjorie Miller, a blind counselor with the non-profit Lighthouse for the Blind in Chicago, thinks enough blind people refrained from voting because the president would force President instead of Jimmy Carter.
MILLER SAID only about 15 percent of all kind people knew Braille, so she would have to be on hand.
"read aloud" names of candidates and offices as a blind voter纳票a ballot.
Daniel Hagan, chief clerk of the Illinois Board of Elections, says that although Jimmy's is the first such complaint he's heard in 3½ years, "it's a legitimate issue. If there were only 200 people who wanted Braille ballots, they have a right to vote."
Meanwhile jimmy, a short, thick-framed Montana who is at his post in the lobby from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., goes about his campaign.
"A LOT OF them think I have a bad attitude," he says, "They wish they could just pacify me so I would shut up and leave them alone."
Sometimes when a lawyer wanders by for cigarettes, Jimmy pipes in: "Why don't you guys pass a law so blind people like me can see?" He says the reaction is usually negative.
But shutting up is not his specialty. "I don't think they intentionally want to make voting inaccessible," he says. "I just think it is inaccessible because nobody complains loud enough. . . I just want to vote in secret. What's so terrible about that?"
Actually, no right to a secret ballot has been established in the federal constitution, which lets state sets up elections. But secret voting is a practice most Americans cherish, and many states spell out that right in their constitutions or laws.
TONIGHT!
November Meeting
Oread Neighborhood Association
7:30 p.m. Community Bldg., 11th & Vermont
Annual Membership Dues-$1.00
All Oread residents and property owners are urged to attend. SUPPORT YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD
Binois, for one, guarantees a legal ballot by law and also guarantees assistance to the oppressed.
SCHNEIDER
Su Casa
Gift Shoppe
THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR EXPERIENCE. RE-ELECT ATTORNEYGENERAL CURT
Paid for by委员会 to Re-Elect Attorney General Curt Schneider. John D. McGraw and Joe Siau. Co-Chairman: Holly Tucker. Treasurer:
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1. You must be 21 years of age.
2. Clues will be given daily between 8 pm & midnight at G, P, Lovels.
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GOOD LUCK!
The Democratic Ticket
JOHN CARLIN
GOVERNOR
CURT SCHNEIDER
ATTORNEY
GENERAL
JOAN FINNEY
STATE
TREASURER
JIM SUPICA
STATE REP.
43rd Dist.
MIKE GLOVER
STATE REP.
44th Dist.
ENOCH JACKSON
STATE
SCHOOL BOARD
BETTY PAXON
SECRETARY
OF STATE
JOHN SOLBACH
STATE REP.
45th DIST.
WALT CRAGAN
COUNTY
COMMISSIONER
BILL ROY
U.S. SENATE
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Paid for by the Douglas County Democratic Central Committee, David Berkowitz, Chairman.