As voters went to the polls last month in the Texas primary, the voting rights hotline lit up at the nonprofit advocacy agency Disability Rights Texas.
Molly Broadway, the group’s training and technical support specialist, heard from some frustrated voters with disabilities who had not received their mail-in ballots on time. Others had their ballots rejected several times because of signature and personal identification requirements or fretted that new rules banning ballot assistance could make criminals out of their friends and loved ones.
Broadway and other disability rights activists have spent months educating voters about new state requirements and restrictions enacted last year by Republicans in Austin. While she helps voters with disabilities navigate these new rules and encourages them to make voting plans well ahead of Election Day, Broadway often finds herself having to emphasize that they have not lost their right to vote—it’s now just harder to exercise that right.
