1 Many Voices: One Vote! Presented by the National Youth Leadership Network. >> GABRIEL: Hi and welcome to tonight's teleconference entitled Many Voices: One vote! My name is Gabriel Cazares and I'm a member of the National Youth Leadership Network. I will be your moderator for tonight. Before we start the teleconference, we will ask the audience to please mute your phone by pressing the pound button. So once again if you're just joining us, we are asking all of you to please mute your phone by pressing the pound sign. I would like to take a brief moment to tell you a little bit about tonight's call. The National Youth Leadership Network is conducting this teleconference with support from the Independent Living Research Utilization or ILRU. This is scheduled to be an hour and 30 minute long teleconference. During the first hour, speakers will talk about questions concerning issues about voting and people with disabilities. The last 30 minutes of the teleconference you will be as participants able to ask questions. Once the speakers have answered all the chosen questions, the telephone lines will be opened giving you a chance to ask the speakers a question. For those of you joining on the web, you can send your questions to Laura Hoffman at lauracourtney82@hotmail.com at any time during the 2 call. If you have any technical problems during the call, please contact Stacey Milbern, her E-mail address is Stacey.Milbern -- Today we are joined by Amy Litzinger, NYLN governing board member, Steven Sebastianelli, NYLN member, Lauren Stuck, NYLN member, Nathan Turner, NYLN governing board member, Tia Nelis, self-advocacy specialist at Rehabilitation Research and Training Center, Institute on Disability and Human Development, University of Illinois at Chicago, and Nancy Ward, information coordinator for the Medicaid Reference Desk. I would like to take a brief moment to introduce each of our speakers. We will begin with aim my Litzinger. She will be introducing herself with her biography. >> AMY: Can you guys hear me? >>Yes. >> AMY: Okay, I'm Amy Litzinger and I'm a member of the NYLN governing board and the advocacy committee. I'm currently attending Southwestern University at Georgetown, Texas and I'm pursuing a degree in English. I have had a lot of experience in the disability community. I've worked on the Texas Youth Leadership Forum, Texas Children's Policy Council and the National Council on Disability youth advisory committee. I'm very glad to be here. >> GABRIEL: Thank you. >> STEVE: I'm Steven Sebastianelli. I'm currently a member of NYLN and NYLN advocacy committee. I am currently a senior at a high school. I was previously a youth leader in the Pennsylvania youth 3 leadership network, and I will be attending Philadelphia University in the fall of 2008, pursuing a bachelors degree in digital animation. >> GABRIEL: Our third speaker Lauren Stuck. >> LAUREN: (no audio). >> GABRIEL: Our fourth speaker Nathan Turner. >> NATHAN: Hello everyone. I'm Nathan Turner. I am a member of NYLN governing board and the NYLN advocacy committee. I'm a student at Wright State University, majoring in political science. I have served on a local Mayor's Commission on Disabilities to provide consultation on issues related to the local level and I currently serve statewide with the Ohio statewide council for independent living centers and also at the federal level on the National Council on Disability Youth Advisory Committee. I'm working to become a civil rights lawyer and make society equal for all. I look forward to speaking with all of you. (no audio). >>Hello. >>Hi, this is Anita Cameron. >>Tia, could you please introduce yourself. >> TIA: This is Anita Cameron. I'm with the center for disability rights in Rochester, New York. >>Nancy, could you please introduce yourself. >> GABRIEL: Hello, can you hear me? >>Can you hear me? My name is a knit tay Cameron I am with the center for disability rights in Rochester, New York. 4 >>My name is Nancy Ward and I'm the information coordinator for the Medicaid Reference Desk and the co-director for (inaudible) project, and I live in Oklahoma and work at RPNA. >>Thank you very much, Nancy. >>I would like to remind all the audience to please mute their phone by pressing the pound sign. This will keep out any noise that is not necessary throughout the conference. Please mute your phone by pressing the pound sign. >> GABRIEL: Participants, please remember that you will not be able to ask questions until the end of the speaker session. So please try to remember your question. We are now ready to begin asking the speakers some chosen questions. All of our speakers who are NYLN members will have up to ten minutes to discuss his or her answer to the question. Our professional speakers, Ms. Nelis and Ms. Ward, will have up to 20 minutes to offer their insights to us on voting, process and people with disabilities. Now let's begin with the speaker session. We will begin our discussion tonight on voting and people with disabilities with Amy Litzinger. Amy, what can you tell us, what do people with disabilities need to know about the importance of people with disabilities voting and the process of voting? How does this process work? >> AMY: Sure, I can do that. What's the first question? >> GABRIEL: What is the process of voting? >> AMY: Okay, well, the first thing you need to know is it is 5 very, very easy if you follow the steps. And first of all, you need to know whether or not you are registered and where your polling place is. And the easiest way to do that is to go to can I vote.org and it's canivote.org and you can type in your county, and it will tell you -- and the name, and it will tell you whether or not you're registered, and then from there you can find out where your polling place is. So on election day, you go to your polling place and you bring your state I.D. and/or your voter registration card and sign your name and if you need help voting, the people there will help you put in your choices and you follow the directions there and you should be able to cast your vote. >> GABRIEL: Amy, can you please tell us where youth with disabilities can find out more information about the process of vote something. >> AMY: Yes, it's www.canivote.org. >> GABRIEL: Thank you, Amy. We will now take one question from the audience. If you have a question, please press the pound sign to unmute yourself and voice the question. If nobody has questions for Amy, we will move on. No questions? Thank you, Amy. Our next speaker is Steven Sebastianelli. What does it take to register to vote? >> STEVE: Well, there are certain qualifications before you can register to vote. One must be a citizen of the United States of 6 America. You must be a resident of a state where you intend to register. You must be at least 18 years old. You may preregister if you are under -- if you are 17 or if you have been issued a drivers license before your 17th birthday. Also, the court must declare you competent with respect to voting. In addition, you cannot be a convicted -- cannot be convicted of a felony unless you've had your civil rights restored. Another thing someone must know is there is a registration deadline. One cannot register after about 29 days before the election. And this time is counted when you go and hand the filled out application to either a supervise or of elections, the division of elections, a drivers license office, a voter registration agency or an Armed Forces recruitment office. It also counts the date when you post mark it. Another important thing to think about is which party you are going to choose. Now, most people think of the typical Democrat and Republican parties, but there is also the green party, the Libertarian party, the constitution party, the reform party, the natural law party and the prohibition party. And there are many others. If you do not belong to a party, you can register at independent or write none or American or my personal favorite, the birthday party. That is if you don't have a party you want to register to. So there is only one down fall to doing this, is you are unable to vote in the primaries. I also want to say make your vote count because an uneducated 7 vote counts as much as a well educated vote in today's society unfortunately. But we better not make the presidential race the (inaudible). Someone who votes for Obama because they think he's cute may count just as much as someone who researches and decides that they like his stance on health care or the war or something like that. so if you do not plan on researching a candidate fully and making a well educated vote, I suggest not even registering. Because it does not help the U.S. in the long run. Now, there are different ways of getting a registration packet. One could go to beavoter.org where they will send you a registration packet from the Internet. It's beavoter.org. You can also register at any D. M. V. office or public library. If you have any questions about registration, you can call your board of elections which you can find in the blue pages of the directory. Thank you. >> GABRIEL: We will now take this opportunity to take a few questions from (inaudible). If you have any questions for Steven personally, please press pound if you have muted your phone to unmute yourself. If not, we will move on. >> CALLER: Hello. One question that I have is why are we not able to vote in the primary? >> STEVE: Well, see, if you do not register as a particular party like a Democrat or Republican that has candidates competing against each other, well then you are unable to vote in the primary. It is deciding who the representative of that party is. >> CALLER: Thank you. 8 >> STEVE: Does that clarify? >> CALLER: That does. >> GABRIEL: We have time for just one more question for Steven. If you have a question, please voice it now. If not, we will move on. Thank you. I would like to know if speaker No. 3, Lauren Stuck is present. Lauren, are you here? If not, we will move on. Now, it is time for speaker No. 4, Nathan Turner. Now, Nathan Turner joins us to talk about being a voter. Nathan, what does it mean to become an informed voter? Nathan? >> NATHAN: Hello. >> GABRIEL: Yes. >> NATHAN: Hello, good evening everyone. I would like to express my appreciation to everyone for showing (inaudible). I firmly believe that voting and politics are intertwined. One has to understand politics in order to understand voting. Please remember that voting provides a way for decisions in the political process and when you exercise your vote, you are in control. So becoming an informed voter -- remember as I said the issues and elected officials affect daily lives and that everyone that can -- (inaudible) needs to vote in at least one major issue. So when researching to make an informed decision while voting, you should first begin with a candidate's platform or their plan -- what they plan to do while in office. Be careful to not get wrapped up in charismatic candidates. Be sure you know the physics as to what their policies are and how they plan to implement them. 9 That is a perfect segue into my second point about the quality of info when researching candidates. The Internet is an excellent place to research political candidates and to read about political issues, but you have to be careful because the Internet has a lot of bias which is just -- a bias is sort of like a viewpoint. And you want to try to get information that has nonpartisan or unbiased information. And as a last resort, if you can't find any unbiased information or you are having trouble researching a candidate, feel free to -- as I believe Steven said -- to vote by party. Voting by party or ideology can provide a guideline as to how to vote in any race that you're uncertain about. And another way to gather information in the political decision is to utilize the opinions of people you trust and/or political leaders. All in all, make sure that the choice is yours. Make sure that you are informed, that you go to the ballot box making an informed decision. And part of that is knowing the issues that are going to be on the ballot. And I have several resources here for researching voting and the candidates and so forth. The first resource is a website that specifically targets young people. It's called Rock the Vote, at www.rockthevote.com. And this is an organization that helps young people to exercise their influence in politics and can direct you to your polling place and give you hints and advice on how to vote. My second website that I have is for an organization called Project Vote Smart, www.votesmart.org. And Project Vote Smart website 10 is on public officials in general, so if you wanted to see what your local -- what your representative or your congressman voted for or against, you can research that through this website as well as other election-related news. A third website that I found really helpful is from an organization called the League of Women Voters. And that website is www.lwv.org. And this is another nonpartisan political organization that advocates public policy -- that advocates the improvement of policies through the voice of the people and with grassroots advocacy. This organization was particularly helpful because it provided statewide chapters. And again, you can use this as a resource for voting and polling places and statewide issues, statewide political news articles. This is a very good website. And the fourth website I have is for an organization called smart voter. That's www.smartvoter.org. This is designed to help voters understand candidate platforms and -- excuse me -- smart voter is designed to help voters understand candidates -- specifically local candidates -- and they also provide background information on those candidates as well as information on local and state ballot issues. And another resource I have found specifically for people with disabilities is the American Association of People with Disabilities, that's www.aapd.org. And their mission is to help people with disabilities get involved in the political process to ensure that they have (inaudible) in America. I thank you all for listening to my presentation on becoming an informed voter and I'd be happy to clear 11 up any -- take any questions to clear up anything. >> GABRIEL: At this time I would like to inform you that it is getting close to the time for you, the participants, to ask your questions. So if you are joining by phone, please have your questions ready. And for those of how are joining on the web, please E-mail your questions to Laura Hoffman. Her E-mail address is lauracourtney82@hotmail.com. Also before moving on, I would like to repeat once more to our audience to please mute your phone by pressing the pound sign. It is my pleasure now to (inaudible) tonight's discussion. Tia would like to tell us about an exciting program she is working on for voting and people with disabilities. Tia, what can you tell us about Project Vote! also please feel free to introduce yourself. >> TIA: Okay, can you hear me? >> GABRIEL: Yes, ma'am. >> TIA: Project Vote is also -- Nancy Ward who is going to be a speaker is a project director for Project Vote!. It's an opportunity for people to learn about voting. It involves registering to vote. It also involves how to get to know your candidates, where you want to vote. It talks about barriers and some suggestions that you can do. In voting, it's a training that people could be a part of. Right now we're going to a couple of different states and teaching them about Project Vote! in there it also helps people know about your polling places and what things that you can ask for, like 12 if you need supports when you're voting. It also has a video about voting and people talk about things that you can get support on when you're voting. We also have a Project Vote! website. It's called govoter.org. And you can see on Project Vote! website a public service announcement that we just did for the national organization self-advocates become empowered along with them. I'm voting and telling people why they should vote. We just finished that and it's on our website and hopefully we're going to be able to put it on cable stations telling people that it's important to vote. During the trainings, we also work with protection and advocacy organizations to help them work with people with disabilities and so that they can start working together on hopefully many different projects, not only Project Vote! but also working on many different projects with self-advocates so they get to know their protection and advocacy organizations that are in their state and they can start working together as a team. This year we're doing Boston. We're going to teach Project Vote! in Boston. We're also going to do it in New Mexico and Tennessee. Those are the places that we'll be training Project Vote!. The people then after learning to vote will go out and train other people in their state about Project Vote! and hopefully more people with disabilities will be out there voting. That's what Project Vote! is doing right now and we're working -- we have done many other states before that are out there teaching 13 people about why it's important to vote. So if anybody has any questions about Project Vote!, we'll be happy to answer them. >> CALLER: Okay, I have a couple of questions. What I'm wondering is how can disabled people find out about Project Vote! orally, written or both? >> TIA: If you go to our website that I gave you, govoter.org, it gives you all the information. >> CALLER: Thank you. >> CALLER: Hi, I'd like to know how long is the training that you provide? >> TIA:It's usually like two days. We usually do like a Friday and a Saturday or sometimes we do it -- it depends on the group that we're working with. We can figure it out -- sometimes it's during the week and sometimes it's during the weekend. We find that most of the people are available during the weekend. It's easier for people so they don't have to take off work. >> CALLER: And is there a fee for the training? >> TIA: Yes. You could find out on our website. There is information about how to contact a person named Hannah Bowen who helps us and what you will need to do for us to be able to do that. Thank you. >> CALLER: And also how can people who can't see, read or hear and can still find out about this -- about Project Vote! and still be able to vote? >> TIA: How could people what? 14 >> CALLER: Who are unable to see or hear still vote? >> TIA: Hopefully we will get -- when they contact Hannah, we'll be able to hopefully arrange some accommodations if a person needs accommodations if they want to be a part of the training. >> CALLER: Because I think an interpreter would also be a good way for people like that to find out. >> TIA: Well, some of the things that people talk about when they are interested in a training, we ask people what accommodations people will need in order to participate. And we'll try to hopefully work it out between them and us if we can get accommodations for the person to be able to participate. >> CALLER: Have you ever done this training in Texas at all? >> TIA: No, we haven't. >> CALLER: Okay. >> GABRIEL: I am going to have to end the Q. and A. right now because Q. and A. is scheduled for after our next speaker. I'm very sorry, but please do not forget your questions. Q. and A. is coming up after Nancy Ward. But we would like to move on with reading Ms. Nelis' bio. We feel it would be rude to leave it out so I'm going to read it. Tia Nelis is a self-advocacy specialist at rehabilitation research training center institution on disabilities University of Illinois at Chicago. She is also the past chairperson for the national organization self-advocates become empowered. She has founded People First of Illinois which has successfully promoted people first. 15 Ms. Nelis has served as president of the People First of Illinois and Naperville. She has been honored with the Burton Blatt Award and the Elizabeth Boggs Award and Ms. Nelis has drawn on experiences relating to her own disabilities and promoting and demonstrating the benefits of empowerment for people with disabilities. She has wide experience in conducting training and advocating for policies with legislators and public officials. That is Tia Nelis' biography. We will now move on to our next speaker who is Ms. Nancy Ward. Ms. Nancy, it's all yours. >> NANCY: Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. Since Tia has done what Project Vote! is, what I'm going to talk about is what Oklahoma does and that would be a way for other people to do vote training as well. Which is since I work at our P&A, they have to go into the ICFMRs into our institution, and what we do is People First goes in with them and we do the Project Vote! training to people who are in the institution and then people I work with have the opportunity to interact with people and it doesn't seem so threatening to them then because they are at a training that is an informational program and fun. And for this election, we registered 20 people to vote who were in the institution. >> GABRIEL: I'm sorry for interrupting you, Ms. Ward, but there is a lot of background noise. Once more, audience and speakers, if you are not speaking, mute your phone because there is incredible 16 amount of background noise. Please mute your phone by pressing the pound sign. I apologize, Ms. Ward, for interrupting. >> NANCY: That's fine. So that's another way that we have done the vote training. And I apologize because I got disconnected when Tia was talking so I didn't hear everything that she said. (inaudible). I want to ask if anybody has any questions and then I can do -- about Project Vote!, too. You're right, there is a lot of background noise. >> GABRIEL: There is a group of multiple people speaking. There is a group of multiple people speaking. Please mute your phone. by pressing the pound sign. Ms. Ward, I'm sorry once more. >> NANCY: That's okay. >> GABRIEL: Please feel free to continue, Ms. Ward. >> NANCY: The thing that's really cool about Project Vote! is that Tia and another friend of ours, Theresa Moore, when we developed it, we saw that people with disabilities weren't voting and so we wanted to do something about that and so we developed Project Vote!. So Project Vote! is done with pictures and made accessible for people so that anybody could use it and that's one of the things that I think that's very cool about it. And I don't know what else to say, because like I say -- I'm sorry about this -- but I got disconnected. So I don't know what you talked about with them. >> GABRIEL: Thank you, Ms. Nancy. I apologize for the noise that 17 still continued after we asked you to mute your phone. We'll now take our final questions for Tia or Nancy. If you have a question for Tia or Nancy, this is the time. If not, we will move on to our general Q. and A. session. >> CALLER: Hi, Gabriel, this is Laura Hoffman. I have a question for both Tia and Nancy. >> NANCY: Go ahead. >> LAURA: My question is both of you could talk a little bit about what are some common accessibility problems for people with disabilities in being able to vote. >> NANCY: Well, one of the barriers we have tried to deal with and that we've found that's been very hard is there on only seven states in the country that don't have an incapacitated rule, meaning that if people have guardians, then they are not supposed to vote. There is only seven states in the country that don't have that. And so that makes it very hard for a lot of people because a lot of people with disabilities have been told they can't vote because they have guardians. So what we're waiting to have happen is somebody to challenge that. And so that would be one example of a barrier. For people with cognitive disabilities, I think the biggest barrier is understanding the issues and what the candidates are saying because a lot of times people don't understand big words and one of the things that the co-workers -- they can't explain things to you. They just have to read it. I found this out the last time I voted. And so what we've 18 done is we've -- People First, what we did is we have the League of Women Voters come to our meetings because they are nonpartisan, they can talk about did issues and the candidates with us and we have some sample ballots and then people can mark those sample ballots and take them with them to the polling place. So those are two examples of barriers that we've ran into. Does this answer your question, Laura? >> LAURA: Yes, it does, Nancy. Thank you very much. >> NANCY: You're welcome. >>I'm sorry, also, do you know of any new technology that has been coming out to help people with disabilities vote? >> NANCY: As of last July, they had to have all the voting -- well, one polling place in each district had to have an accessible voting machine. And so that would be the technology that I would know about, the new technology like the screen reader and the different ways they do that. >> CALLER: Thank you, Nancy. >> NANCY: Sure. >> GABRIEL: Is there any other questions for Nancy? >> CALLER: I have a question. It's Amy Litzinger. >> AMY: As far as the accessible technology, do the poll workers know how to explain the accessible technology to you? Or do you already have to know how to use it? >> NANCY: Well, one of the things that I found very helpful is that -- and very interesting is that the phones that you now can use for voting, they only have to use those -- in a federal election they 19 don't have to use them for county or state elections and I think that's something that people need to fix because I think that, you know, voting is voting. And it shouldn't matter if it's not federal. I still think people should be able to have it accessible to them. Does that answer your question? >> AMY: My question is do the polling workers know how to explain the technology to you or do you already have to know how to use it? >> NANCY: Oh, okay. I've seen it both ways where people have known how to help you and I've also seen it where I've practically had to explain to them what ADA is. >> AMY: Thank you. That answers my question. >> CALLER: My name is Israel and I have a question for anyone that wants to take this question. In the case of there not being an accessible voting machine at the polling place, how secure or private would our vote be? >> NANCY: So do you have somebody help you voting you mean or doing it -- like having one of the poll workers help you? Because you can have somebody you trust as long as it's not a union worker or -- well, obviously one of the candidates. >> CALLER: Thank you. >> AMY: This is Amy Litzinger. In my personal experience, I didn't ask for help and I asked them not to help me and they refused to go away. I've seen it both ways. >> NANCY: I have, too, because time before last I voted. I had them explain stuff to me and that's when I found out that they really 20 shouldn't do that, but then once they did explain it to me, they wouldn't leave. So, you know, they were there when I was doing my vote. >> GABRIEL: Okay. Thank you all. Well, this ends the speaker session. Now we will begin our participant session in which the participants can ask questions and the speakers will answer them. If you are a participant joining us by a phone line, we will now open the participants' phone lines to ask the questions. Before asking the question, please state your name. If you have a certain speaker you would like to answer your question, please say who you want to answer the question. The speakers for tonight are Amy Litzinger, Steven Sebastianelli, Nathan Turner, Tia Nelis, and Nancy Ward. I will now turn the call over to an ILRU operator who will tell you what buttons to use on your telephone to ask your question. >> GABRIEL: All right, if not, just push the pound sign if you've muted yourself and feel free to ask your questions at this time. >> CALLER: Hello. >> GABRIEL: Yes, ma'am. >> CALLER: Hello, I have a question for anyone who can answer it. My name is Jessica. I have voted in the past, but I have voted by absentee ballot. So far none of the candidates have mentioned that use of voting and I was wondering is it not available in all states? Is that why? >> GABRIEL: Would one of the speakers please take her question. >> NATHAN: Good evening, Jessica. 21 >> NANCY: This is Nancy Ward. Well, the reason why Tia and I didn't talk about absentee ballot -- although in Oregon that's the only way they vote is they vote by mail. The whole point of voting for us -- well, is to get your voice heard, of course, but it's also to educate people about people with disabilities and you can't do that if you do it by absentee ballot. So it's important to us to be at the polling place. >> CALLER: Thank you. >> NANCY: You're welcome. >> GABRIEL: Anyone else? This is the time where you can state your questions. >> CALLER: Yes, this is Angela and I'm a transition counselor in Texas and I think this question is to Nathan. Could you please repeat the third website resource that you gave? I believe it was for the League of Women Voters. >> NATHAN: Hello. Good evening. Thanks for your question. Yes, the third website for the League of Women Voters, that's www.lwv.org. >> CALLER: Okay, thank you. >> NATHAN: Or if you like as an alternative, you can just go to your search engine and type in League of Women Voters and that usually comes up with a number of choices. >> CALLER: Okay, thank you. >> NATHAN: You're most welcome. >> GABRIEL: If anybody else has a question -- actually, I apologize. At this time I would like to ask Ms. Laura Hoffman if 22 there are any web questions. >> LAURA: Hi, Gabriel. Yes, I dove one web question from Jesse Chapman and Jesse would like to know -- and she didn't address any particular speaker -- but Jessie would like to know how people -- young people with disabilities can create voter awareness in their local communities? What advice any of the speakers tonight have for young people with disabilities to create voter awareness? Thank you. >>I would just say encourage your friends to vote. >> GABRIEL: Any other speakers have advice for that question? >> NATHAN: I would definitely say -- this is Nathan Turner -- I would definitely say that getting involved, just becoming a leader, going to city council meetings or getting involved with other youth with disabilities, going to youth groups and just beginning to make your voice heard is also a way to influence the voting process. >> GABRIEL: Let's move on to our next question if anybody in the audience has a question, please state it. >> CALLER: I do. My name is Trevor. I'm already registered to vote, but I have a question about the best way for disabled people and how they can register to vote without too much pressure. >> GABRIEL: I'm sorry, could you please repeat your question? >> CALLER: I'm registered to vote, but I want to know what the best way is for disabled people to register to vote without too much pressure on them? >>If you mean like choosing a party? Like choosing which party you have to decide? 23 >> CALLER: Something like that. >> STEVE: Well, don't really fret about which party to choose because at any time you can change. So it's not a permanent choice. It's not like you stick with it forever, if that helps. >> CALLER: It does. >> GABRIEL: Any more questions? >> CALLER: I have one more question. How can people with disabilities like low mobility find their closest voting place? >>Gabriel, can you hear me? I just wanted to say I think I can give a little bit about both those questions as far as the easy ways to register to vote. That information is going to be included on the information sheet which will be sent to everybody in the very near future. And also I think the best way to find your polling place is to give your county clerk a call and ask them where the closest one is. >> CALLER: Thank you. >> GABRIEL: Does anybody else have any questions for our speakers? For those of you joining us on the web, please submit your question, if you have any questions, to Laura Hoffman, lauracourtney82@hotmail.com. If any of the audience has any questions, it is your time to speak. We don't want to you leave the conference with any doubts. We want to make sure everything is crystal clear. If you have any questions or doubts, please state them at this moment and one of our speakers will answer them. >> CALLER: Hello. 24 >> GABRIEL: Yes, sir. Is somebody speaking? Any more questions? >> LAURA: This is Laura Hoffman. I have a question. >> GABRIEL: Go ahead. >> LAURA: Okay, and maybe Nancy or Tia could talk about this. Could you please tell us -- because I don't know if everybody knows why the Americans with Disabilities Act is important as far as protecting the rights of people with disabilities for voting. >> GABRIEL: Tia or Nancy? >> NANCY: I was unmuting my phone again. Well, the reason why I think the ADA for voting is important is in America, you know, that's one of our rights is to vote and it's also a responsibility, and I think that -- I think in the ADA it talks about voting and it talks about what you need to do and so I think that's a way to make it accessible to people with disabilities about voting. What I'll do is I'll send the part to Laura that talks about that because I don't have it in front of me to know what it is. Would that be okay, Laura? >> LAURA: Oh, that's great, Nancy. Thank you very much. >> NANCY: Sure. >> TIA: And lar a it's Tia. I think also the accessibility issue is one of the ways that ADA talks about making things accessible, making buildings and places accessible so that may be a tool that you can use when you're trying accessibility to get into a place is needed. I also think that part of some of the other questions about 25 sending the mail to voting, I think some of the reasons the candidates don't also talk about absent ballots, there may be many different reasons. And part of it is if they don't want people in different parties to know about how they can vote in other ways if they are not doing so well in the polls. So an issue could be that candidates are trying to not -- (inaudible) and also some of the candidates don't even know about absentee ballots themselves. So it's a way of educating them, too. >> LAURA: Thank you very much, Tia. And I have one other question and this can be for anybody who is speaking tonight. Can you tell us how we can get involved with campaign work? How can people with disabilities get involved actively in campaigns for supporting political issues or candidates for office? >> AMY: It's Amy. Can you hear me? >> LAURA: Yes, I can, Amy. >> AMY: I got involved on the local level because since I live in the capitol city, I made myself really visible around the capitol and then a candidate actually asked me for help on his campaign over the summer and I interned for him. And that's how I got involved. Does that answer your question? >> LAURA: Yeah, I guess I just want to know generally how people, you know, can find ways to get involved in campaigns. >> TIA: This is Tia. If you just go to their -- most of the time they have ahead quarters in your area that the candidates will set up. People get involved by just going in there and asking them if they 26 need any help with -- you know, they always need help with the envelope stuffing, that kind of thing as a part of that. That way you as a person could hear what's going on firsthand while you're working in the office. And volunteer to ask them to do that. Some people deliver the candidates brochures to other places, you know, hand them out, volunteer to pass them out at their train station or their bus stops or whatever. Those are ways that people have gotten involved before at a local level. You know, go to their local office, their home office and ask if there is anything can you do to help them. And I'm sure they'd be willing to set you up with things. They are always looking for people to help, especially during election time. >> NATHAN: Laura, I also -- I completely agree with what was just said. I also would like to encourage -- especially college students, to go to -- especially if they are majoring in political science, a liberal art or a business major, see if they can establish (inaudible) with a political candidate or a political candidate's campaign because that is a good thing to put on a resume. With those internships you build contacts and you never know what contacts will come in handy when. So those internships are an excellent way to build contacts and link with professionals. >> LAURA: Thank you, Nathan. >> NATHAN: You're most welcome. >> LAURA: And thank you Tia and Amy for your thoughts. >> NANCY: This is Nancy, and I also have a suggestion. One of the things that -- well, one of the ways you could do it is we've had 27 candidates come and speak at our People First meetings, and then from having them speak at our People First meetings, we get what their opinion is on different issues, and then because we know how people feel about different issues, then that gives us an idea of how we want to help people. So we'll go down to their campaign of somebody that we like and ask them if they need help. And like Tia said, we've never been turned away because people need volunteers all the time. >> LAURA: Thank you, Nancy. >> NANCY: You're welcome. >> CALLER: And I have one last question before I have to go. One last thing I need to ask is how can people make sure their vote is the best for them and for this country? >> NANCY: This is Nancy again. I think it's extremely important to be an informed voter and I can't remember who it was, but somebody was saying that if you're not an informed voter, your vote counts just as much as if you are an informed voter, and unfortunately that's true. And I think it's real important to make sure that you understand the issues, and I think a lot of people who don't have a disability don't take the time to understand the issues like people with disabilities do. Because it's important to us to have a government that, you know, accepts people with disabilities -- well, accepts everybody. And one of the things that I think would be really neat is if you have everybody with a disability all vote for the same people, then we would be able to -- we would be a majority. We would be able 28 to elect our own government and I think that would be very cool. >> CALLER: Thank you. Steve I'd like to continue on that question. >> STEVE: You should also look at all sorts of other topics and all sorts of other views. Make sure that you're confident with the way they react, the way they previously voted for other things in Congress or as senators and just make sure you're confident with your vote that you agree with what this person thinks. >> CALLER: Thank you. >> NATHAN: This is Nathan. I just want to reiterate the importance of research. Research, research, research. You have to know the issues and know the candidates you're voting for. The more you know about the ballot and its issues and the candidates, the more comfortable you'll feel about your decision. >> CALLER: Okay. >> GABRIEL: Does anybody else in the audience have a question for our speakers? I have a question actually for Ms. Tia or Nancy. Either/or, it doesn't matter. If you could give us a brief description once more to make sure that everybody including myself have a clear grasp of the project. Is Tia or Ms. Nancy? >> NANCY: I'm sorry. Could you repeat the question again, please? >> GABRIEL: I was asking if you could give us just a quick brief summary over Project Vote! once more to make sure that everybody has a 29 clear grasp over the subject. >> NANCY: Okay, I can do that. Project Vote! is a curriculum that will help you learn about why it's important to vote, how to register, how to elect a candidate and it will talk about different barriers that there might be in voting and what you can do to get around those barriers. So it was a curriculum that was developed to help people understand the voting process and why it's important. >> CALLER: My name is Israel. I have one more question about Project Vote!. Now is this only a theory based project or do you actually put it into practice in like a polling scenario? >> NANCY: You mean would we do Project Vote! in a polling place? >> CALLER: Yes, is it -- is it put into practice or is this just on paper? >> NANCY: Oh. Okay. One of the things -- the reason why Tia said that it's a two day training is because what we do after we help people learn and understand about the voting process, then they have to teach it back to us, and they have to go out after they've shown us that they can do it, then they are responsible for doing three trainings in their area in their state. So it is put into practice. It's a train the trainer. >> CALLER: Okay, thank you, ma'am. >> NANCY: You're welcome. >> GABRIEL: Does anybody else have any questions for any of our speakers? 30 >> CALLER: I have a question about Project Vote!. You said it's a train the trainer type of project. So is this training conducted with high school youth and my other question is I know you said it's a two day training, typically a Friday and a Saturday. Are you all flexible with those two days? >> NANCY: Yeah, it's whenever people want us to do it. We'll come any time. >> CALLER: And do you do it with youth, high school youth? >> NANCY: There are self-advocates on the team. The teams are made up of about two self-advocates, somebody to support them, somebody from the community and a legislator or election official, so somebody like that. >> CALLER: No, I meant -- >> NANCY: People from the community learn to work with people with disabilities and people with disabilities understand how to work with the government. >> CALLER: Do you provide the training to high school youth -- they have disabilities, but they are in high school. >> NANCY: Yeah, we would. >> GABRIEL: Any more questions for any of our speakers? No? If not, actually, let me check with Laura Hoffman. Is there any more web questions? >> LAURA: We do not have any more questions at this time. >> GABRIEL: Okay, is there not any more speaker questions -- I mean audience questions? No? Unfortunately we are coming to the 31 conclusion of our call this evening. Please visit the teleconference web page in which there will be more resources and materials that are available for you to view. On behalf of National Youth Leadership Network I would like to thank the participants and speakers for taking time out of your busy schedule and joining us today. We also want to thank ILRU for their support. Please join us in September for our next teleconference call and webcast. Thank you all for joining us and have a great night.