New Louisiana election laws creating challenges for voters with disabilities
CBSN
New laws aimed at protecting the 2024 presidential election from fears about fraud are creating unexpected barriers for some of the nation's more than 40.2 million voters with disabilities, disability rights advocates have told CBS News.
Laws in more than 20 states now restrict various elements of mail-in ballots including limiting the kinds of assistance a voter can ask for. Restrictions like those limit the ability of health aides and nurses to help prepare a ballot for the people they care for – and some even threaten criminal charges for aides who help too many people to vote.
"If I owned a nursing home or a group home, I [would] put out a memo to my staff saying, 'don't help anybody out because if you end up helping two people out by mistake, you could, could go to jail,'" said Andrew Bizer, a disability rights attorney in New Orleans. "And it also puts the folks with disabilities in a really terrible situation."
