To our 2024 election candidates, canvassers, and organizations, supporters… and well beyond because, let’s be honest, this open letter to you all may very well still be relevant in future elections to come.
We are less than a month away from the election. These next few weeks are crucial in getting the word out about candidates and ballots. In Omaha, we’re dealing with two abortion ballots that are so similar in wording, done purposely to confuse citizens on which one is actually the one they want to vote for.. One vote in confusion can make or break the result we want in order to protect reproductive rights. Candidates, canvassers, organizations, and supporters are hosting events to teach people how to register to vote, what these ballots are for, but is everyone receiving the information?
My name is Rikki Poynter. I’m a content creator, writer, public speaker, and accessibility consultant. I’m also disabled. I’m deaf, with chronic pain and fatigue. I’ve been working in disability awareness and rights, including accessibility, for ten years now. Everyday, I’m fighting for everyone to obtain access to captions and sign language interpreters online and offline.
The next few weeks are crucial. More events are being held to speak about the ballots, the candidates. Videos, ads, and infographics are being posted. But so many of these are often missing something: accessibility. There are no properly done captions, image descriptions, transcripts, or ASL interpreters. Do you know who isn’t receiving the information when you don’t have accessibility? Deaf people. Disabled people.
Recently, access to an ASL interpreter for a ballot education event was denied twice without asking questions. They would’ve been able to get one for free, but they didn’t give us the time of day to talk about it, ghosting us from a phone call and ignoring emails after lying to us and claiming they didn’t qualify for a free grant. Many other organizations have straight up ignored comments and requests for ASL interpreters for events, captions for videos.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 gives us the legal right to accommodation to public events. When you ignore or deny a request, not only are you acting immorally, but you are acting illegally, going against an actual law.
What does this say when organizations preach inclusivity and rights for all, but won’t allow deaf people access to vital information? To me, it sounds like access to information only matters to a certain demographic, a non-disabled one. Without giving access to information, we cannot acquire the votes we need from them to make a change.
I have been denied interpreters twice for the same event, my emails ignored, organizations told me to my face that their ads would be captioned yet they’re uploading without them, then ignoring my comments that ask and remind them to caption their videos. Do you want our votes or not?
I’m here. I’m here to help you learn how to make you more accessible. I can help you with learning how to caption, who to go to for ASL interpreters and obtain a grant to get them for no cost at all. I can help you with image descriptions and making sure everything offline is as accessible as possible. Accessibility is not perfection and it never will be, but it’s the effort that matters, and so far, all we’re being told and shown is that we’re not worth putting the effort in.
Please make your content and yourself accessible today. Forget about yesterday. What matters is what happens now after you see or hear this video. Let’s move forward and be able to make sure we’re doing everything we can to give everyone equal access to information and the ability to vote so that we can see the change we want and need.
Thank you.