Empish Thomas is a 51-year-old voter from DeKalb County, Georgia who is blind and needs help filling out and mailing in an absentee ballot. In 2020, she was able to get that help from a sighted friend she trusted. But after the state of Georgia passed a law that made it a felony for anyone other than a “caregiver” or certain family members to help her return her ballot, she doesn’t know if she will be able to find anyone to help her vote absentee. She feels she has no choice but to try to vote in person, even though she can’t drive and has to rely on rides from others or public transportation to get to the polls.

“I believe I would be committing a crime any time I tried to have someone return my ballot because I would need to ask someone other than a family member or a caregiver,” said Empish. “The new criminal penalties are one of the big reasons I don’t feel that absentee voting is accessible to me at all.”

Voters with disabilities, like every American citizen, should have the same right and equal opportunity to vote. Many voters with disabilities find it more difficult or dangerous to go to the polls and vote in person, so the ability to vote by absentee ballot is crucial. But the voting law passed in Georgia in March 2021 targets absentee voting and, as a result, makes voting difficult for disabled people. That’s why this week, the ACLU and some of the nation’s leading civil rights organizations filed a preliminary injunction to stop the bill, Senate Bill 202, from disenfranchising voters with disabilities in the 2024 election cycle and beyond.

Aspects of the bill, if left in place, violate the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. These federal laws prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities, including imposing unnecessary burdens that effectively deny them the full and equal opportunity to access and participate in elections. The ADA and Section 504 don’t just require that people with disabilities can vote in some way — they require that states make all voting programs accessible to voters with disabilities. Voters with disabilities are legally entitled to full and equal access to Georgia’s absentee voting system, and it’s illegal to make that program burdensome or inaccessible to them, as SB 202 does.

The new voting bill puts in place a number of requirements for people who want and need to vote absentee (either by mail or by returning their ballot to a drop box). These rules hit people with disabilities particularly hard because of their reliance on absentee voting, and the preliminary injunction focuses on two of those new requirements:

First: SB 202 makes it a felony for friends, neighbors, or staff who work in shelters or nursing homes to help people receive or return an absentee ballot, even if the person has a disability. The law says that only a “caregiver” or certain family members can help with ballot return, but it doesn’t say anything about who counts as a “caregiver” under the law, and Georgia has refused to offer guidance about it.

The law creates big problems for the many disabled people who rely on friends or neighbors to help them with tasks like sending mail. For people like Empish Thomas, who has no local family members who can assist her and no one she considers a “caregiver,” this new law can make absentee voting almost impossible.

The law also makes it even harder to vote for people who live in institutional settings, like nursing homes or homeless shelters. Often, in those settings, staff help residents with sending mail, but under SB 202, those staff could be charged with felonies for providing that kind of help.

Second: SB 202 requires that ballot drop boxes be placed inside buildings and closed after business hours. Before the law was passed, most drop boxes were located outside of buildings and were available 24 hours a day.

The changes were particularly hard on Patricia Chicoine, who is 76 years old and lives in Fulton County. Because of her arthritis and knee replacements, she can’t stand for long periods of time and can’t walk more than very short distances. She even has to drive to pick up the mail from the mailbox in front of her house. Like many voters, she didn’t trust the mail, and the drop box gave her more confidence that her ballot would be counted. She was able to drive to the drop box outside her local library and used it without any problems.

But when she tried to drop off her ballot after the new law passed, things were different. She had to get out of her car and go inside the building, then walk down a long hallway to the other side of the building to find the drop box, which was very difficult for her. It took her over an hour to drop off her ballot. After that experience, she realized indoor drop boxes weren’t accessible and went to vote in person instead.

Many people with disabilities, especially those who use wheelchairs or have difficulty walking, find it much easier to use a dropbox that is outside. They can drive or walk directly to the drop box and deposit their ballot. Requiring them to go inside and find the box takes a lot of extra time and effort, and some voters with disabilities might not be able to use a drop box at all. Further, people with disabilities who rely on getting rides from others or using public transportation to get to a drop box have fewer options now that drop boxes can’t be used on evenings and weekends.

It is imperative that the court step in to protect the rights of the hundreds of thousands of voters with disabilities in Georgia, ensuring that they have an equal opportunity to participate in the 2024 elections. By halting the enforcement of the confusing and chilling felony provisions and permitting counties to place drop boxes outdoors, the court can restore the more inclusive voting rules that were in place before SB 202.

“When voting is accessible, I have equal access to participate in politics alongside my able-bodied peers,” said Empish. Taking that access away, she added, “is frustrating to me, because I have thoughts and views just like anyone else.”

Governments should never silence or sideline the voices of disabled voters. By advocating for a preliminary injunction, the ACLU and our partners are calling for the accessibility and equality that should be the cornerstone of our democracy. The court must recognize the urgency of this matter and act swiftly to protect the rights of disabled voters, thereby reaffirming the principles of equality and accessibility that underpin our democracy.

This week was a heartbreaking one for those of us who believe in the freedom to fully control our bodies, lives, and futures. Anti-abortion legislators pushed their extremist agenda in three states simultaneously, and as they did they showed the world exactly who they are: legislators bent on cutting off access to health care who won’t let public opinion or democratic principles get in their way.

Just a few weeks ago, we saw the will of the 59 percent of Nebraskans who support access to abortion prevail as legislators rejected a proposed abortion ban. But not content with regular process, anti-abortion extremists turned around and proposed an amendment to an existing bill, attaching an abortion ban to legislation that would ban gender-affirming care for youth. With this move, they confirmed what we have long known. Anti-abortion and anti-trans movements have the same goal: to deny us the ability to make our own decisions and define our own path. This is about control, plain and simple.

American Civil Liberties Union

The Intertwined Future of Attacks on Abortion and Gender-Affirming Care | ACLU

We’re poised to fight back against state legislative efforts to control our bodies and limit access to essential health care.

And it doesn’t stop there — these lawmakers are willing to bend our democratic rules in order to achieve that goal. That blatant disregard for the democratic process was embodied by the governor of South Carolina who, just five minutes after the end of regular session, announced his intention to call legislators back into session in order to ban abortion. And South Carolina House Speaker Murrell Smith affirmed that disregard when he said, “the chamber will not adjourn until the measure gets approval.”

They’re well matched by their neighbors in North Carolina, who told the press that “House and Senate leaders will meet in private to come to an agreement, and then they will roll out a bill after they have an agreement, so that the two chambers don’t have to get into a public debate over that decision.” And they managed to do just that, passing a ban on abortion at just 12 weeks of pregnancy and severely curtailing access to care before that point for millions of people in the state.

But what else would we expect from people who are so indifferent to opposition that they move forward on extreme bills despite the public making their demands known? We saw this in Nebraska, where hundreds protested in the capitol during debates, and in North Carolina where 2,000 people showed up to a rally supporting the governor’s veto and over 200 businesses spoke up in opposition to the law.

These lawmakers have prioritized scoring political points by any means necessary over the will of the people they represent. But we know it’s about more than political gamesmanship. It’s about the woman who has desperately tried to start a family, only to become pregnant and discover severe complications during pregnancy. It’s about the cancer patient who needs to end their pregnancy in order to continue life-saving treatments. It’s about the 12-year-old survivor of rape and incest who doesn’t want to bear the child of her abuser. It’s about the student in the final year of school who doesn’t want life-long dreams taken away. Fundamentally, it’s about all of us who deserve to be able to control our own bodies and the course of our own lives. It’s about freedom.

This is unacceptable behavior from elected officials, and it’s time we fight back. If you live in Nebraska, North Carolina, or South Carolina, look up the votes your elected official took this week and let them know how you feel about it. And let’s all stand in solidarity with our community in those three states by showing up at local events for abortion rights, and calling our elected officials to let them know how important it is that every person can make decisions about their bodies and lives, and access essential health care like abortion. It’s time we let our representatives know that we are paying attention, and we will fight for our freedoms with everything it takes.

On Tuesday, voters in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania sent a resounding message: They want solutions to prevent crime in the first place, not just politicians stoking fear after it happens.

By an 11-point margin in the primary election, voters chose the reform candidate for district attorney, Matt Dugan, who offered an affirmative vision for safety and justice that starkly contrasted with the tough-on-crime approach of the defeated 24-year incumbent, Stephen Zappala.

Like so many of the district attorney contests across the country, the race between Zappala and Dugan came down to competing visions of public safety. Dugan pledged to focus on prevention rather than punishment and addressing the root causes of crime, like poverty and lack of opportunity. Allegheny County voters embraced his solutions-oriented focus, and rejected the failed punitive policies that were a hallmark of Zappala’s more than two decades in office.

The result should not be a surprise.

According to an ACLU-commissioned survey of likely Democratic primary voters in Allegheny County, when asked to choose between two candidates — one with a more preventative approach to crime and public safety and one with a more punitive approach — voters overwhelmingly choose prevention over punishment.

73 percent of surveyed voters preferred a candidate who believes public safety requires prioritizing investments in schools, mental health and drug treatment, and affordable housing — rather than spending more money on jails and prisons.

Pennsylvania voters have shown repeatedly that they want elected officials who offer promising solutions on safety and crime prevention. In the 2021 election that was seen as a referendum on Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s progressive policies to reduce mass incarceration, Krasner convincingly defeated his tough-on-crime opponent. And during the closely watched 2022 midterms, the Pennsylvania Senate race pitted Mehmet Oz’s law-and-order rhetoric against John Fetterman’s record as a reformer. Fetterman leaned into his record, and he won.

This trend is not unique to Pennsylvania: Candidates across the country who focus on prevention and addressing the root causes of crime continue to win at the ballot box.

In another closely watched election this year, the Chicago mayoral race, public safety featured prominently, and voters rejected the tough-on-crime candidate in favor of reformer Brandon Johnson. According to an election-eve survey commissioned by Vera Action and conducted by GQR, 95 percent of run off voters said crime in Chicago is a serious problem, but nearly 60 percent preferred solutions that prevent crime before it happens over more tough on crime measures. When asked what the next mayor should do to address crime and improve public safety, surveyed voters said the most effective solution is investing in more mental health and drug addiction programs (32 percent). Notably, much lower on the list of effective solutions was the hiring of more police (18 percent). As GQR noted, even though Chicagoans are concerned about safety, they also “embrac[ed] a nuanced view of the causes of crime and potential solutions.”

Politicians and their advisors should take note — tough on crime isn’t just bad policy, it’s bad politics. Scare tactics and fearmongering don’t do anything to make our communities safer. Voters want proven solutions that provide justice and safety, like investing in mental health and addiction services, community violence intervention, housing, health care, jobs, and schools. And they are electing candidates who offer solutions and hope, not fear and failure.