Independent Perspective 1667 with Todd Vaarwerk about the importance of voting in the off year election and Meet the Candidates Days.
Host: Welcome to Independent Perspective, a public affairs presentation of Western New York Independent Living (WNYIL). Our guest today is Todd Vaarwerk, Chief Policy Officer of WNYIL, and I'm your host Ernie Churchwell. Welcome to the program Todd.
Guest: Always wonderful to be here.
Host: You are a person who for a great many years has been expert in all things of political and governmental affecting people with disabilities. And so you have played a pivotal role for a long time in the fact that the family of agencies has for 30 some years promoted the need of people with disabilities to vote in each and every election. This is a kind of an off year. Why is it so important that people with disabilities vote in this election?
Guest: Well, there's three things to remember. First is that even in an off year, a non-federal, state election year, right, you've still got races that are really important. For example, in Erie County, we've got the Mayor of the City of Buffalo, very hotly contested race. We've got the county sheriff, a very hotly contested race, and a very important race, because the person who wins is going to set law enforcement policy for the county. But if none other, no other reason, there's the idea that politics is a ladder. So the people that are running for local office today are going to be the people that are running for state legislator tomorrow, or federal congressman, the year after that. So now's the time to get to meet the people in the beginning part of their political career.
Host: Yes, if people have been paying attention to the news they probably know that in a number of states across the country, they're trying their level best to actually discourage additional people from registering to vote and participating in the November polls. New York doesn't seem to have that problem does it?
Guest: No no, if anything New York is kind of going the other way to make sure that we are defending the rights of everybody to be able to cast a ballot. Early voting is a relatively new thing for us it's only been three election cycles now. We're also talking about the accessible absentee ballot, becoming more technically feasible, especially with COVID. that was a big challenge. In New York, we don't have a desire to limit people casting a ballot. Other states may, but that's not happening here.
Host: Great. In fact, New York has gone out of its way to make polling places more accessible to people with various kinds of disabilities. Could you mentioned the ballot marking devices?
Guest: Oh well absolutely now the ballot marking devices have been around for a long time. That was an outgrowth of the Help America Vote Act in 2000. So, in our region we've got two kinds of accessible voting machines, the Auto Mark ballot marking device which kind of to me is like an ATM, you feed the ballot in and it gives you your races one at the time. In, for example, Niagara and Genesee counties and other areas of the state, you might be working with a Dominion machine which is a little screen that’s on the back of the same box where you actually submit your ballot. And I kind of call that voting by Atari, because they give a control, and then on the screen its the big full face ballot, and you're kind of hopping around to figure out which square you want to highlight, and then at the end, it prints your entire ballot for you so that you walk it around to the other side of the machine and submit it so that there's a written paper trail.
Host: It occurs to me. We're actually running low on time and you need to tell us about the Meet the Candidates day in three locations,
Guest: We absolutely have Meet the Candidates Days in three locations. On the 26th, Tuesday is the one for Erie County in Buffalo from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. On Wednesday, it's our Niagara County folks from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. And on Thursday is our folks at Independent Living of the Genesee Region from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. All of these are virtual events, you're going to use Zoom, you don't even have to leave the house. We want to see you, we want you to be able to be there and ask questions to the candidates. I really love a full room with 50 or 60 video cameras on for a couple minutes. We really want to drive that home because we believe that an informed voter and educated voter is an effective voter,
Host: If people have questions, how can they reach you?
Guest: They can always call me 836-0822 extension 101.
Host: Thanks so much for being with us Todd.
Guest: You're welcome.
Host: You've been listening to Independent Perspective, a public affairs presentation of WNYIL. Our guest has been Todd Vaarwerk, Chief Policy Officer of WNYIL, and I've been your host Ernie Churchwell.