MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin voters with disabilities should be able to vote electronically and the failure to offer them that option in the Aug. 13 primary and November presidential elections was discriminatory and unconstitutional, a lawsuit filed Tuesday in the battleground state argues.
The lawsuit seeks to provide the same electronic absentee voting option to people with disabilities as military and overseas voters. Under Wisconsin’s current law, people with disabilities are “treated unequally and face real and significant barriers to participating in absentee voting,” the lawsuit argues.
Absentee ballots, including who can return them and where, have become a political issue in the battleground state of Wisconsin, where four of the last six presidential elections have been decided by less than 1 percentage point. The Wisconsin Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case next month that seeks to overturn an earlier ruling banning absentee ballot drop boxes.
A federal court sided with disability rights activists in 2022, saying the Voting Rights Act applies to Wisconsin voters who need assistance with mailing or delivering their absentee ballot because of a disability. The ruling overturned a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that said voters could only return their ballots in person or by mail.
The new lawsuit was filed in Dane County Circuit Court against the Wisconsin Elections Commission by four voters, Disability Rights Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters. Election Commission spokeswoman Riley Vetterkind declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The lawsuit argues that Wisconsin needs to allow voters with disabilities to vote electronically in order to comply with various state and federal laws regarding accommodations and equal access. Electronic voting also ensures that people with disabilities are treated equally to other voters, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit alleges that most absentee ballots in Wisconsin are paper ballots, meaning many people with disabilities cannot vote without assistance. If electronic voting were an option, people with disabilities would be able to vote in secret, the lawsuit argues.
“This unconstitutional flaw in Wisconsin’s absentee voting system is well known but has not been addressed,” the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit was filed by three people — Donald Natzke of Shorewood, Michael Christopher of Madison, both of whom are blind, Stacey Ellingen of Oshkosh, who has cerebral palsy, and Tyler Engel of Madison, who has spinal muscular atrophy. All four of them claim in the lawsuit that they cannot independently vote absentee.
The lawsuit alleges that failing to provide electronic absentee voting to people with disabilities violates the state and federal constitutions, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the federal Rehabilitation Act, which prohibit all organizations that receive federal financial assistance from discriminating on the basis of disability.
People with disabilities make up about a quarter of the U.S. adult population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In recent years, they have been caught up in battles over polling place access, including as many Republican-led states limit the assistance voters can receive and whether someone else can return a voter’s mail-in ballot.