Mother Jones illustration; Photo courtesy of Alison Kukla
It can be challenging to manage the symptoms of a disability or chronic illness during a long workday. For disabled and chronically ill poll workers, Election Day—which can mean 14-hour shifts—certainly takes the cake.
Being a poll worker can be a meaningful civic duty for those who participate. Disabled poll workers are also crucial: They understand the importance of making sure disabled voters’ access needs are met—11 percent of disabled people had trouble voting during the 2020 presidential election, according to the Election Assistance Commission. It’s unclear just how many poll workers have a disability, but in addition to long days, concerns about the job’s impact on Social Security benefits may hinder some.
After last week’s election, I spoke with four poll workers about how the day went for them.
Allison Kukla: Chicago, Illinois
Kukla lives with epilepsy and has focal impaired awareness seizures.
I’ve been a poll worker for a couple of years now. I’ve always been politically engaged. I previously worked in President Obama’s administration, and I always want a way to give back to the community.
I brought a seizure first-aid poster with me so that I could educate my fellow poll workers if anything were to happen—here’s how you handle a seizure—and educated them on my seizure type. I also had my partner’s contact information in there, in case anything were to happen. I wanted to make sure they were comfortable.
One of my roles was doing the ADA accessibility checklist that the Chicago Department of Elections has, where you have to go through and make sure the accessible voting machine has a certain radius around it for people in wheelchairs to be able to maneuver, and also have certain cones and signage up around accessibility. I’m happy to take on this role to make sure our polling location is ADA-accessible. People with disabilities and chronic conditions have a different perspective and might think of things other people do not.
Kira Wills: Providence, Rhode Island
Wills lives with fibromyalgia, hemiplegic migraine, essential tremor, and spinocerebellar ataxia.
I have the time, and I know how important elections are. It was my second time doing it, this time with my daughter—I had done it in September, and the polling place, a community center, was the one that my grandparents were founding members of. So us being there together, with my grandparents in a mural in the building, was that much more poignant to me.
My daughter was really vigilant about letting everyone know, no matter what, that they would be able to use an accessible voting machine. There were more than 35 people who used it. Some of them had a visible disability, some for an auditory disability, and for others, it was a language difference. Some people had surgery, and the height is what made it accessible to them because they were in a wheelchair.
Four people were there from the Office of Civil Rights. We did have bilingual poll workers there for Spanish and English, including me, to help out with things, and people from the Office of Civil Rights did stand back to be able to hear how we were checking people in with their IDs, making sure to verify their address and their name, but in a way that was still respectful and clear for people. I was very proud to be able to facilitate such an important process and make them feel welcome.
Taryn Balwinski: Chattanooga, Tennessee
Balwinski lives with cerebral palsy.
This is my very first time being a poll worker. This year, I didn’t volunteer with a candidate, so I really wanted to be involved in the election in some way or form. I worked over 13 hours straight.
My significant other was telling one of his co-workers that I was going to be an election poll worker, and his co-worker happened to know that I have a disability and that I’m in a wheelchair. His response, word for word, was, “Wow. They let them work.” I forget that some people just blatantly do not understand that people with disabilities work and are out in the community.
At our polling station, each person that came in to vote was given a piece of paper, and they had to put their name and address on it, and when they got to our station, there were like five different things we had to write on the paper. That just surprised me, because whenever I go to vote, I show my ID and they have a paper that already has my name and address on it.
I can see why that might be a literacy issue for a lot of people, and it really troubled me—I didn’t realize that was something that people voting at that location had to do until the day I was working.
Veronica Ayala: Galveston, Texas
Ayala lives with cerebral palsy and arthritis.
In 2008, I was inspired by the Obama campaign to really get involved, more so than before. I got a call from my aunt, who’d always been an election worker, because I speak Spanish, and they needed interpreters—she asked me if I would be willing to become an interpreter at the election.
One of the Republican election judges actually approached me and was like, why aren’t you a judge for your party? I thought my disability would hold me back from being a judge. There’s a lot of equipment and things like that the judges are responsible for. I’m like, “There’s no way I can lug that stuff.” She’s like, “They have people that would do that for you.”
We don’t do it in shifts like people think we do. I try to hydrate as best I can. I sit for too long helping with provisional ballots. It can be detrimental to my joints if I don’t get up and stretch and things like that, so I move at a snail’s pace. If I didn’t think I could do this job, I wouldn’t. The county calls me back every time, so I must be doing something right.
I’m a person with a disability. You may not be able to tell, but when I get up and move, you can tell. Knowing that someone with a disability is in that location makes them more comfortable with the idea of coming in and exercising their right to vote, because someone in there understands and will help them cast their ballot in a safe, secure way without any judgment.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
