World Pool Championship: Kelly Fisher in group with Alex Kazakis as Fedor Gorst defends his title

World Pool Championship: Kelly Fisher in group with Alex Kazakis as Fedor Gorst defends his title

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World Pool Championship: Kelly Fisher in group with Alex Kazakis as Fedor Gorst defends his title

Kelly Fisher will meet Alexander Kazakis and Darren Appleton in her group at the World Pool Championship in Milton Keynes

Fedor Gorst will begin his World Pool Championship defence against Estonia’s World Cup semi-finalist Mark Magi in Milton Keynes, live on Sky Sports.

Among the other standout matches for the double elimination Group Stage is recent World Pool Masters champion Alex Kazakis against women’s world champion Kelly Fisher.

Championship League Pool winner faces Italian Mosconi Cup legend Fabio Petroni, while former world champion Mika Immonen will be up against rising star Kristina Tkach.

The tournament begins on June 6 with a two-day Group Stage, with the 128 players split into 16 groups of eight players.

That will reduce the field down to 64, after which the tournament will adopt a straight knockout format.

Group matches are all race to 9, with knockout stage matches a race to 11 except the final, which is a race to 13.

Players who win their first two matches in the group stage advance to the last 64, while players who lose their first two will be eliminated.

Players with one win and one draw will play a third match with the winner advancing to the last 64 and the loser knocked out.

Fedor Gorst is the defending World Pool Championship champion

GROUP DRAW

Group A

Fedor Gorst (ROC) vs Mark Magi (EST)

Mark Gray (GBR) vs Julio Burgos (PUR)

Jeffrey De Luna (PHI) vs Dimitri Jungo (SUI)

Konrad Juszczyszyn (POL) vs Jasmin Ouschan (AUT)

Group B

Albin Ouschan (AUT) vs Fabio Petroni (ITA)

Roberto Gomez (PHI) vs TBC

Omar Al-Shaheen (KUW) vs Alain Da Costa (FRA)

Aloysuis Yapp (SGP) vs Kaiden Hunkins (USA)

Group C

Billy Thorpe (USA) vs Francisco Gatsby (CHI)

Marc Vidal (USA) vs Ivica Putnik (CRO)

Petri Makkonen (FIN) vs Benjamin Belhassen (FRA)

Mieszko Fortunski (POL) vs Marcel Price (GBR)

Group D

Thorsten Hohmann (GER) vs Tobias Bongers (GER)

Mika Immonen (FIN) vs Kristina Tkach (ROC)

Sanjin Pehlivanovic (BIH) vs Kevin Lannoye (BEL)

Ralf Souquet (GER) vs Ronald Regli (SUI)

Group E

Jayson Shaw (GBR) vs Moritz Neuhausen (GER)

Jani Siekkinen (FIN) vs Michal Gavenciak (CZE)

Ruslan Chinakhov (ROC) vs Alex Montpellier (FRA)

Marc Bijsterbosch (NED) vs Imran Majid (GBR)

Group F

Casper Matikainen (FIN) vs Elliot Sanderson (GBR)

Mark Foster (GBR) vs Jan van Lierop (NED)

Mohammad Ali Berjawi (LEB) vs Vladimir Matvienko (ROC)

Max Lechner (AUT) vs Mickey Krause (DEN)

Group G

David Alcaide (ESP) vs Andreja Klasovic (SRB)

Pijus Labutis (LTU) vs Jeremy Sossei (USA)

Robbie Capito (HKG) vs Ruben Bautista (MEX)

Denis Grabe (EST) vs Vitaliy Patsura (UKR)

Group H

Skyler Woodward (USA) vs Jaroslav Polach (SVK)

Radoslaw Babica (POL) vs Ivo Aarts (NED)

Vincent Halliday (RSA) vs DJ McGinley (CAN)

Daniel Schneider (SUI) vs So Shaw (IRI)

Group I

Shane van Boening (USA) vs Petr Urban (CZE)

Oscar Dominguez (USA) vs Roberto Bartol (CRO)

Karol Skowerski (POL) vs Jonas Souto Comino (ESP)

Hunter Lombardo (USA) vs Mats Schjetne (NOR)

Group J

Wojciech Szewczyk (POL) vs Marco Dorenburg (GER)

Richard Halliday (RSA) vs Aleksa Pecelj (SRB)

Oliver Szolnoki (HUN) vs Daniele Corrieri (ITA)

Francisco Sanchez-Ruiz (ESP) vs TBC

Group K

Eklent Kaci (ALB) vs Lukas Fracasso Verner (USA)

Stephen Holem (CAN) vs Badar Alawadhi (KUW)

Yukio Akagariyama (JPN) vs Ricky Evans (USA)

Corey Deuel (USA) vs Benji Buckley (GBR)

Group L

Darren Appleton (GBR) vs Shane Wolford (USA)

Marco Teutscher (NED) vs Christoph Reintjes (GER)

Ricardo Sini (ITA) vs Jeff Nieuwenhuyzen (AHO)

Alexander Kazakis (GRE) vs Kelly Fisher (GBR)

Group M

Niels Feijen (NED) vs Tim de Ruyter (NED)

Chris Robinson (USA) vs Yip Kin-Ling (HK)

Nick Malai (GRE) vs Veronika Ivanovskaia (GER)

Masato Yoshioka (JPN) vs Muhummed Daydat (RSA)

Group N

Mateusz Sniegocki (POL) vs Miguel Silva (POR)

Mario He (AUT) vs Philipp Stojanovic (CRO)

Jakub Koniar (SVK) vs Vania Franco (POR)

Tyler Styer (USA) vs Henrique Correia (POR)

Group O

Naoyuki Oi (JPN) vs Jennifer Barretta (USA)

Roman Hybler (CZE) vs Daniel Maciol (POL)

Donny Olson (USA) vs Bahram Lotfy (DEN)

Chris Melling (GBR) vs April Larson (USA)

Group P

Tomasz Kaplan (POL) vs Sergey Lutsker (ROC)

Chris Alexander (GBR) vs Nikos Ekonomopoulos (GRE)

Wiktor Zielinski vs Kim Laaksonen (FIN)

Joshua Filler (GER) vs Margaret Fefilova (BLR)

For those on the move, we will have the Snooker & Pool season covered via our website skysports.com/more-sports, our app for mobile devices, or our Twitter account @skysportspool for latest news and reports.

Enhancing Accessibility in U.S. Elections

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Authors’ note: The disability community is rapidly evolving to using identity-first language in place of person-first language. This is because it views disability as being a core component of identity, much like race and gender. Some members of the community, such as people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, prefer person-first language. In this report, the terms are used interchangeably.

Introduction and summary

In 2020, voters with disabilities turned out in force in one of the most consequential elections in U.S. history. According to data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 62 percent of disabled voters cast a ballot in the November 2020 election, compared with just about 56 percent of disabled voters who participated in the 2016 presidential election. 2020’s high turnout is demonstrative of disabled voters’ unwavering resolve to make their voices heard and to fully participate in American democracy. While all voters—regardless of disability status—experienced difficulties in registering to vote and casting ballots last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, disabled voters faced particularly significant challenges. Registering or voting in person was especially hazardous for disabled people with certain chronic, preexisting health conditions. Some disabled people who rely on transportation assistance faced logistical obstacles as public modes of transportation came to virtual halts nationwide and the sharing of vehicles posed health risks. And while vote by mail offered many voters—disabled and not disabled alike—a safe and effective alternative to in-person voting, it posed complications for those with visual and dexterity impairments.

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These barriers to voting for Americans with disabilities are not new; rather, the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated the existing barriers that disabled Americans have been facing for generations. Each cycle, disabled people across the United States are forced to overcome immense challenges and make enormous sacrifices to exercise their fundamental right to vote. U.S. election systems and infrastructure are not designed with disabled voters in mind. Disabled voters’ unique and varying needs are frequently overlooked by policymakers, and election accessibility is sometimes dismissed as a logistical and fiscal impossibility. Voting options that could dramatically improve accessibility are too often sacrificed in the interest of security. The result is inaccessible polling places and voter registration offices; inadequate registration and voting accommodations; and election information that is unreadable for some.

Systemic inaccessibility at nearly every step in the voting process causes difficulties for disabled voters, resulting in notable participation gaps between disabled and nondisabled voters. A prominent February 2021 study, the 2020 Election Disability and Voting Accessibility Survey conducted by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and Rutgers University, found that in 2020, disabled Americans were roughly 7 percentage points less likely than nondisabled people to participate after adjusting for age. This must change. Barriers to accessibility must be removed to enable disabled people to participate in elections to the same extent and in equal measure to those who are not disabled. Such is demanded by central tenets of participatory democracy and federal law. This report, which heavily cites the 2020 Election Disability and Voting Accessibility Survey throughout, examines several election-related hurdles that hinder or prevent disabled voters from participating fully in the democratic process, including during the 2020 election cycle. It then offers recommendations that policymakers can adopt to improve election accessibility for disabled voters, including the following:

Provide robust and continuous federal funding for election administration.

Conduct comprehensive accessibility audits on election systems with reform mandates.

Adopt pro-voter policies and meaningful accessibility standards for elections.

Rescind anti-voting rules and reform guardianship laws.

Develop safe and accessible election technology.

Crowdsource low- and no-cost accessible voting solutions.

Enhance enforcement of federal voting laws.

It is long past time that policymakers prioritize improving election accessibility. Enhancing election accessibility and closing participation gaps are wholly achievable and within America’s grasp. Tools and resources exist to accomplish the job; politicians and policymakers must exercise the political will to wield those tools.

Barriers to participating in elections

In 2020, voters with disabilities were nearly twice as likely as nondisabled voters to experience problems when voting. In all, roughly 1 in every 9 disabled voters faced barriers to accessing the ballot box. Put another way, across all voting methods, approximately 11 percent of disabled voters reported difficulties voting in 2020, according to the 2020 Election Disability and Voting Accessibility Survey. This is a marked improvement from past election cycles. For example, in 2012, the last time a comparable study was completed, 26 percent of disabled voters reported experiencing problems while voting. Although this improvement is worth celebrating, it does not take away from the fact that election systems remain inaccessible for many. Indeed, people with vision and cognitive impairments were especially likely to experience obstacles in 2020. An estimated 7 million eligible voters have a visual disability; 13.1 million eligible voters are estimated to have a cognitive disability.

The types of election-related hurdles that hinder or prevent voters with disabilities from participating in elections are as diverse and varied as the disability community itself. Disability is not a monolith: It has broad meaning and is not limited to physical or cognitive disabilities, as is so often wrongly assumed. People who are disabled may have symptoms that affect their hearing or vision, may experience memory loss, or may have difficulty learning or communicating. Some disabled people utilize mobility assistive devices to ambulate. Mental health conditions also qualify as disabilities. The list goes on.

With respect to an individual, the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 defines disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual; a record of such an impairment; or being regarded as having such an impairment.”

Each disabled voter has unique needs dependent on their specific disability. Factors impeding a blind voter’s ability to cast a ballot may be different from those affecting a voter with a cognitive disability or social anxiety disorder. The overlapping burdens experienced by ) who are disabled cannot be overemphasized. Disabled are doubly burdened with accessibility barriers and anti-voting policies designed specifically to prevent BIPOC from participating in elections, such as strict voter ID and signature matching requirements, polling place closures in BIPOC communities, and restrictions on mail and early voting. One in 4 Black Americans have a disability, while every 3 in 10 American Indians and Alaska Natives are disabled. It is important for policymakers to keep these realities in mind as they identify barriers that keep disabled Americans from fully participating in the democratic process. Taking a holistic approach to pinpointing accessibility barriers is necessary to ensuring that all disabled Americans—no matter their disability—have equal access to elections.

Below, the authors provide a sampling of barriers to voting and elections that make participating harder for voters with different types of disabilities. This list is in no way exhaustive. It does not include a discussion of inaccessible campaign webpages where voters obtain important information about candidates, nor does it examine how disabled people are disadvantaged by big money in politics. Still, the list below offers policymakers a good starting point to begin to thoughtfully examine inadequacies in their own election systems and to brainstorm solutions. Policymakers must work closely with affected voters and advocates representing varied disabilities and interests to discern all the ways that existing election systems are inaccessible.

Inaccessible voter registration

Requiring assistance when registering to vote can pose fewer privacy concerns than the act of voting. There is also lower risk of coercion. Still, registrants with disabilities should be able to complete voter registration processes privately and independently, just as nondisabled registrants do.

An individual must first register before they can vote. Depending on the jurisdiction, a voter may register in person at a designated registration office, by mail, or online. A growing number of states automatically register eligible Americans who interact with certain agencies such as departments of motor vehicles (DMV), unless the person declines. For decades, these registration methods have successfully added millions of Americans to voter rolls, yet they pose challenges for disabled voters. Federal law requires states to make voter registration fully accessible to people with disabilities. But for many disabled Americans, that right too often goes unrealized. In 2020, people with disabilities were 3 percentage points less likely than people without disabilities to report being registered to vote, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Although that number may seem small, it translates to millions of Americans. Disabled voters with cognitive difficulties, as well as those with self-care and independent living difficulties, were especially unlikely to be registered.

Registering in person

The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requires that states make available various options for registering to vote. The law requires states to offer voter registration services at state DMVs and at other state and local government entities, such as public assistance and disability offices. At these places, employees are required to provide registration materials and assist people with disabilities in completing and returning necessary paperwork. Unfortunately, government entities sometimes fail in their duty to assist disabled voters in registering to vote. Investigations by nonprofits into state NVRA compliance discovered that some designated entities do not offer registration services or do so intermittently, do not make registration materials available, or are unaware of their duty to offer such services to people who interact with their offices.

Regrettably, state DMVs have been found largely inadequate for registering people with disabilities. Disabled people, particularly those with certain visual and mobility impairments, underutilize DMV services either because they cannot drive or because obtaining a driver’s license is exceedingly difficult. Disabled people are less likely than nondisabled voters to drive their own or a family vehicle. Although the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits DMVs from denying driver’s licenses because of disability status, burdensome requirements for disabled people can have the same overall effect. For example, some states require people with epilepsy to provide a physician’s note confirming they can drive safely and/or require disabled drivers to provide periodic reports attesting they have been seizure-free for a certain period of time. Furthermore, DMVs located in rural communities and other areas with high densities have been shut down in recent years. As noted previously, are disproportionately likely to have one or more disabilities.

NVRA noncompliance at designated government entities and inaccessibility of DMVs have implications for automatic voter registration (AVR) systems because AVR relies heavily on registrant data derived from these locations. As a result, disability advocates have raised concerns that some AVR systems are underinclusive of disabled people who want to register. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least eight states operate AVR programs solely out of the DMV.

Registering by mail

The NVRA further requires states to offer voter registration services by mail. Registering by mail, which remains among the only registration options in eight states, is problematic for Americans who have print disabilities, or difficulty or inability to read printed material due to a perceptual, physical, or visual disability. For these individuals, completing paper registration forms and returning them by mail may be impossible without assistance, especially if registration paperwork is not made available in accessible downloadable and fillable formats. The act of placing paper registration forms in the mail is problematic for voters who have difficultly traveling to the mailbox or post office. Even obtaining information online about how to register can be difficult for disabled registrants. A 2020 review by the Miami Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired found that election webpages in 12 battleground states were in violation of ADA accessibility standards to varying degrees.

Registering online

Online registration, which has been adopted by 41 states and Washington, D.C., poses its own challenges for voters with disabilities. To register online, potential registrants must visit and complete the relevant forms found on official webpages, which can be inaccessible for some people with disabilities. A 2015 study by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Accessible Technology found that only one state—California—had an online registration system that was fully accessible. At that time, most states failed to meet even minimum accessibility standards. Although improvements have been made since that study was completed, some election websites still are not designed to accommodate magnifying tools that assist low-vision users in reading and completing online forms. Others are not built for screen reading technology that helps translate text into spoken word for registrants with visual impairments. Websites that require the use of a keyboard or mouse, lack explanatory graphics, and rely on highly complex, technical language pose significant hurdles for registrants with dexterity and cognitive disabilities. These same technical deficiencies prevent disabled voters from accessing important election-related information about registration and vote-by-mail deadlines as well as information about designated polling locations and relevant documentation required to cast a ballot.

Inaccessible voting

Several federal laws require voters with disabilities to have equal voting access. They include the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA); Americans with Disabilities Act; Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA); Rehabilitation Act of 1973; and the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act of 1984 (VAEHA). Together, these laws guarantee the following rights:

People with disabilities must have full and equal access to cast ballots that count.

In-person voting sites and polling places must be fully accessible to disabled voters.

People who need assistance when voting by reason of disability or limited English proficiency must be able to choose the person who assists them, with few exceptions.

The right to vote cannot be conditioned on a voter’s ability to read or write or on a similar test of cognitive capabilities.

Each polling place in federal elections must have at least one accessible voting machine that enables voters with disabilities to cast a secret, independent ballot.

Unfortunately, disabled voters often find that these mandates are unmet to varying degrees when they try to vote in person or by mail. Roughly one-sixth of disabled voters required assistance and/or had trouble casting a ballot last year.

Voting in person

Disabled voters have come to expect that they will face myriad obstacles when showing up to designated voting sites—and 2020 was no exception. Last year, roughly 49 percent of disabled voters voted in person on or before Election Day. Ultimately, 18 percent of disabled voters who chose to vote in person at a polling place or election office last year experienced problems casting a ballot. This is compared with 10 percent of nondisabled in-person voters. Individuals with cognitive and visual disabilities, as well as those who require assistance with daily activities, were disproportionately likely to report problems at in-person voting locations. Disabled voters who had difficulty voting in person in 2020 reported encountering polling places that were inaccessible, ballots they had difficulty reading or seeing, and problems associated with waiting in line to vote. Others reported difficulties communicating with poll workers and with understanding how to use voting equipment; a small percentage of disabled voters also reported being treated disrespectfully by election officials. Among disabled voters who voted in person and required assistance last year, one-sixth did not receive the help they needed.

Inaccessible voting locations: Polling place inaccessibility is among the most common problems encountered by disabled voters. An oft-cited 2017 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that 60 percent of polling places had at least one impediment that made them inaccessible. Problems ranged from deficient ramps for wheelchair access, inadequate passenger drop-off areas, and insufficient signage indicating accessible entrances or causeways. In 2020, voters with disabilities were nearly six times more likely than nondisabled voters to experience difficulties entering polling places. For voters who are blind or with low vision, low-hanging signage or tree branches in and around polling places; blockades in hallways or along sidewalks; and open stairwells pose risks to voting in person. Such impediments also make in-person voting harder for voters with disabilities who use wheelchairs, scooters, and other mobility aids and who require wide unobstructed pathways to move around. An estimated 21.3 million eligible voters have a disability that affects mobility. Doorways that are not automated, propped open, or outfitted with accessible hardware may make it impossible for some disabled voters to enter without assistance.

Problems at check-in: Problems persist during the voter check-in process. Voters who are deaf or hard of hearing have trouble communicating with election workers where information is not provided in writing and where workers face downward or away from the voter when speaking so that the deaf or hard of hearing person cannot lip-read. An estimated 11.6 million eligible voters are deaf or hard of hearing. Wisconsin voters previously were required to verbally state their full name and address when they showed up to vote, which created barriers for disabled voters with communication disabilities, though that law has since been repealed. Although disabled voters are supposed to be informed at check-in about their right to assistance and accessible machinery, this does not always happen, leading to complications. Unfortunately, some disabled voters have reported being asked offensive questions about their disability status during the check-in phase. Even worse, some have reported having their right to vote challenged or being told they should not be allowed to vote.

Accessible voting methods: HAVA requires at least one accessible machine at each polling place. But HAVA is the floor, and its one-machine-per-polling-place mandate is inadequate in densely populated areas or at high-traffic voting locations where disabled voters must endure prolonged wait times to use the polling station’s sole accessible machine. Additionally, jurisdictions are not always compliant with federal law. Voting locations that do have assistive machinery do not always have them turned on or ready to go when polls open, which forces unnecessary wait times on disabled voters who require their use, and some machines are inoperable. Many disabled voters report poll workers being inadequately trained on the use of accessible voting equipment, such as ballot marking devices like ExpressVote machines, and their assistive features like magnification. Some 10 million Americans “need to use magnification in order to vote accurately, efficiently, and with confidence.” In 2020, compared with nondisabled voters, disabled voters who voted in person reported greater difficulty reading or seeing their ballot and understanding how to use voting machines. These voting impediments can be highly discouraging. At best, a disabled voter is forced to endure an overly complicated and often demoralizing voting process. At worst, a disabled voter’s ballot may get lost or the voter may leave the polling place in frustration without having voted at all.

Privacy: Insufficient poll worker training also results in disabled voters being denied their right to choose for themselves who will provide voting assistance. Mistakenly believing they are protecting the disabled voter from potential coercion, poll workers have blocked family members, friends, or care aides from accompanying disabled voters into the voting booth. Sometimes, the disabled voter is told they must vote alone or not vote at all. Other times, election workers designate themselves to assist the voter, which has privacy implications. The 2020 Election Disability and Voting Accessibility Survey found that of disabled voters who needed assistance at polling places last year, more than half were helped by an election official, while nearly one-fifth received assistance from a family member. Reports have also surfaced of accessible election machinery without privacy screens being placed in high-traffic areas at voting sites, allowing anyone walking by to see how the disabled person voted. It must be said that moving accessible machinery into a dark corner at the back of a polling place is not a solution; disabled voters must not be isolated from other voters.

Voting by mail

Voting by mail was the most popular method for casting a ballot among disabled voters during the 2020 election. Roughly 51 percent of disabled voters cast their ballot by mail last year. The proportion of disabled voters who chose to vote by mail exceeds the share of nondisabled people who voted by mail in 2020—about 44 percent—and surpasses 2012 levels for disabled mail voters by more than 27 percentage points. Substantial reliance on mail voting among disabled voters in 2020 can be linked, at least in part, to the coronavirus pandemic and the disproportionate impact its health risks and cascading effects had on Americans with disabilities. The pandemic made voting in person especially risky for disabled voters with certain chronic, preexisting health conditions. Voters such as these were more susceptible to developing severe health complications if they encountered a COVID-19-positive person at an in-person voting site. Health risks associated with and limited access to public transportation and ride-sharing during the pandemic also made traveling to in-person voting locations difficult for some voters with disabilities. Disabled voters are more likely than nondisabled voters to rely on ride-sharing or taxis and public transportation. Some disabled people also rely on paratransit to get to and from places.

Vote by mail provided many disabled voters with a good method for making their voices heard in 2020. Only about 5 percent of disabled voters reported difficulty voting by mail last year, which is an improvement from 2012. Still, disabled voters are roughly twice as likely as nondisabled voters to encounter difficulties voting by mail, and significant obstacles remain. Tensions between security and accessibility are especially pronounced in the mail-voting context. Technologists and election security experts warn that the electronic return of voted ballots poses risks of ballot tampering and system malfunctions where votes can be lost. At the same time, voting and disability advocates argue such methods are needed to protect the federally guaranteed rights of disabled voters. To date, policymakers have struggled to balance these interests.

Inaccessible mail-voting forms: Obtaining a mail ballot poses difficulties for disabled voters who have physical, cognitive, and visual impairments. Many of the same problems discussed in the mail and online registration sections also apply to mail voting. Election webpages where voters can apply to receive mail ballots often do not accommodate tools used by people who are blind, have low vision, or cannot use keyboards or a mouse. Directions for applying for and casting a mail ballot routinely use convoluted language with odd formatting and often lack helpful explanatory graphics, which causes problems for individuals with certain cognitive disabilities. A 2020 study found that 43 states had mail-ballot application webpages that had at least one critical fault that made them inaccessible. On average, state webpages had 10 critical or serious accessibility issues. Problems persist once ballots arrive by mail. Compared with nondisabled voters, voters with disabilities—especially those with low vision and who require assistance in daily life—had a harder time reading their mail ballots last year. A growing number of states allow voters to submit mail-ballot applications online and to receive ballots electronically. However, some places still require absentee applications and ballots to be sent and received by mail, which can be difficult for those who cannot easily travel to mailboxes or the post office. Some post offices, especially those located inside older buildings, are inaccessible to people with disabilities. Low-income voters may also lack printers necessary for printing and returning ballots or mail-ballot applications. Only about 1 percent of disabled voters who voted by mail in 2020 received their ballot through the computer.

Privacy and independence: Inaccessible absentee request forms and states’ reliance on mail paper ballots make it impossible for some disabled voters—particularly voters with low vision and with disabilities that affect the arms, hands, or fingers—to cast a secret, independent ballot. Absentee request forms and mail ballots are seldom compatible with software programs that enable voters with visual and physical disabilities to complete them alone on their computers using assistive aids. Some blind voters have the option to cast mail ballots in Braille, but this still involves election workers hand-copying the voter’s ballot onto a “standard” paper ballot before feeding it through vote tabulators, which violates the voter’s right to a secret ballot. Some jurisdictions will transport accessible equipment to assisted living centers or places where disabled voters live, but this is not an option everywhere, especially in rural areas with limited resources. In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic restricted transportation of voting equipment to places such as nursing homes due to concerns over higher rates of mortality among people 65 and older. For security reasons, most states have barred use of technology that could allow disabled Americans to cast ballots electronically at home or on their mobile devices. Nineteen states require voters to return voted mail ballots via the postal service. Jurisdictions such as West Virginia and Delaware have experimented with mobile phone apps or electronic voting pilot programs, but these initiatives have been criticized by election security experts.

Inaccessible mail-voting systems introduce substantial privacy concerns for disabled voters and disability advocates. According to the 2020 Election Disability and Voting Accessibility Survey, 11 percent of disabled voters who cast mail ballots last year required assistance in completing or returning their ballots. People with low vision had the most difficulty completing and returning mail ballots in 2020; they comprised a quarter of disabled voters who needed help. Although many disabled voters have trusted friends, neighbors, and family members who can assist them, this may not always the case. As described by Tracy Soforenko, president of the National Federation of the Blind of Virginia, “You have to find someone to help you complete that ballot, and you have to trust that they’ll adequately complete that ballot as you wish. People have really strong opinions about voting. Your neighbor might not necessarily agree with who you want to vote for. I wouldn’t know that they completed my ballot accurately. That’s not fair. That’s not right. That’s not the private, independent ballot that we are guaranteed.”

Signature matching: Most states require voters to sign mail-ballot return envelopes to confirm their identity, which is used to compare the voter’s signature to one that the jurisdiction has on file. Signature matching processes are prone to errors and result in valid ballots being incorrectly discarded. In Ohio, which relies on signature matching, one expert estimated that during the 2020 primary election, 97 percent of ballots rejected based on purported signature mismatching were likely wrongly discarded. Signature matching processes are also widely considered to be discriminatory, and disabled voters are among those most targeted. Voters who are blind or have low vision and voters who have limited dexterity may have difficulty signing their names or doing so in a consistent manner. The signature that a jurisdiction has on file may appear very different from that found on a disabled voter’s mail ballot. Ballots signed using accessible signature stamps, which are relied upon by some disabled voters to create uniform signatures, have also been rejected.

Restrictions on ballot collection: Rigid restrictions on who can return someone’s mail ballot disproportionately disadvantage disabled voters as well. Voters with mobility impairments—particularly those who live in congregate settings or who receive home-based services—rely on caregivers, community advocates, and friends or family to assist them in completing tasks. There are approximately 3.6 million people in America who are unable to travel because of a disability. Yet Alabama and Tennessee prohibit ballots from being returned by anyone other than the voter themselves. There are more 567,000 nonelderly disabled people living in Alabama and some 751,500 living in Tennessee. Ten states allow only family members to return mail ballots on behalf of the voter. This is problematic for disabled Americans who may live far away from or be estranged from family. Instead, these voters rely on help from caregivers, community advocates, or friends who are barred from collecting and returning their ballots to election officials.

Guardianship laws

Most states and Washington, D.C., permit judges to strip people with certain cognitive disabilities—such as Down syndrome and Schizophrenia—of their voting rights. An estimated 1.5 million adults in the United States are subject to legal guardianship. These laws rely on an outdated assumption that people under guardianship lack the capacity to make informed decisions about voting. Guardianship laws restricting voting access are unconscionable and discriminatory. Policymakers argue these laws are necessary to prevent disabled people with cognitive disabilities from being coerced into voting. But the reality is that many disabled people with guardians are fully capable of making decisions over casting a ballot. Worth noting is that voter coercion is already a crime. Under guardianship laws, however, it is the voter who gets punished. As described by Charles P. Sabatino, director of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Commission on Law and Aging, “Adults under guardianship lack the decisional capacities needed to take care of one or more essential needs such as health, food, clothing, or shelter; yet, too often overlooked is the fact that in most cases, they do not lack all capacities, and the level of their impairments can fluctuate over time.” States are increasingly moving toward rescinding and modifying these laws, but too many disabled Americans remain disenfranchised. As cited in a 2019 report by the Center for American Progress, one study found that in California alone, at least 32,000 individuals have been disenfranchised on account of guardianship laws over the past decade.

Anti-voting policies

Anti-voting laws, which are designed to keep Americans of color from accessing the ballot box, also prevent disabled people from making their voices heard each election cycle. Voter suppression policies such as voter ID laws, early-voting restrictions, and disenfranchisement of justice-involved individuals disadvantage voters with disabilities, who are less likely to have accepted forms of identification and rely on extended in-person voting opportunities to make their voices heard. Indeed, studies show that 11 percent of voters lack requisite forms of identification; elderly people, people with low-incomes, and are disproportionately likely to lack government-issued ID. Nearly one-quarter of disabled voters cast ballots early in 2020, and prison inmates are three times more likely than the general public to have at least one disability. Overall, 32 percent of prison inmates have at least one disability, with cognitive disabilities being the most common. Discriminatorily motivated policies aimed at limiting the availability of curbside voting and ballot drop boxes and reducing the number of polling places in low-income communities excessively burden disabled voters, especially people with mobility disabilities. Research has found that restrictions over who is allowed to vote by mail can result in lower turnout among disabled voters.

Solutions for improving the voting experience and boosting participation

To eliminate participation gaps between disabled and nondisabled voters, substantial improvements must be made to America’s election infrastructure and voting processes. The goal must be to not just shrink voter turnout gaps between disabled and nondisabled voters—but eliminate such gaps altogether.

For elected officials, improving voting accessibility is required by law. It is also smart politics. Across the United States, disabled people comprise influential voting blocs. According to the most recent estimates, there are more than 61 million disabled adults living in the United States, with voters who are disabled comprising nearly one-fifth of the U.S. electorate. The proportion of disabled adults in the United States is expected to expand substantially as more Baby Boomers reach senior citizen status; it is estimated that 40 percent of all voters will have some type of disability in coming years. Long-term effects from COVID-19 are also expected to significantly enlarge the share of disabled Americans in the United States. Lawmakers must champion accessible voting solutions or risk isolating or disenfranchising enormous numbers of potential voters.

Every voter must have equal access to the ballot box, and the recommendations outlined in this report will help to ensure that promise is fully realized by voters with disabilities. To eliminate participation gaps between disabled and nondisabled voters, policymakers must do the following:

Provide robust and continuous federal funding for election administration.

Conduct comprehensive accessibility audits on election systems with reform mandates.

Adopt pro-voter policies and meaningful accessibility standards for elections.

Rescind anti-voting rules and reform guardianship laws.

Develop safe and accessible election technology.

Crowdsource low- and no-cost accessible voting solutions.

Enhance enforcement of federal voting laws.

In thinking through policy solutions for improving voting accessibility, policymakers and election officials must consider equity gaps in access to computers, smart phones, and other electronic devices. Only about 77 percent of American adults report owning a laptop or desktop; just 53 percent report owning a tablet device. Low-income voters and voters of color are especially unlikely to have ready access to these tools. Of Americans making less than $30,000 annually, only about 76 percent of people own smartphones, compared with 96 percent of those making at least $75,000. Similarly, those in charge cannot assume that every disabled voter will have assistive care or a trusted aide who can help them complete voting-related tasks. Election systems, accessible voting solutions, and emerging voting technology must be designed in ways to ensure that all voters with disabilities have full and equal access to the ballot box and can cast a secure and independent ballot regardless of whether they have a personal electronic device or can afford help.

The Biden-Harris administration demonstrates an ongoing commitment to improving accessibility At the executive level, President Joe Biden has already issued an executive order with initiatives designed to improve election accessibility. Among other things, the March 7 order directed the General Services Administration to improve Vote.gov and ensure the site has user-friendly interfaces that comply with federal accessibility standards. It also directed the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to “evaluate the steps needed to ensure that the online Federal Voter Registration Form is accessible to people with disabilities” and “analyze barriers to private and independent voting for people with disabilities, including access to voter registration, voting technology, voting by mail, polling locations, and poll worker training” in consultation with other federal agencies. NIST is required to publish recommendations following these assessments. Furthermore, federal agencies are ordered to explore ways to better assist individuals in registering to vote and obtaining important election information and resources as well as to promote voter participation generally. These directives will be especially beneficial to voters with disabilities who frequently interact with federal agencies such as the Indian Health Service, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and U.S. Social Security Administration. Beyond this, in March 2021, President Biden took the unprecedented step of naming Kimberly Knackstedt as the first person to serve in the newly created role of disability policy director for the White House Domestic Policy Council. White House staffers focused on voting-related matters should work in close consultation with Knackstedt to ensure the unique needs of disabled voters are fully incorporated into the president’s pro-democracy agenda.

Provide robust and continuous federal funding for election administration

Election funding constraints harm all voters. But when elections are underfunded, it is voters with disabilities and those belonging to other historically underrepresented groups who suffer most. Jurisdictions lacking adequate funding for elections tend to direct whatever little money they have to equipment or initiatives that will do the most good for the most people. There is some logic in this approach; forced to make do with limited funds, jurisdictions want to get the most bang for their buck. The problem, however, is that the needs of voters belonging to groups making up a small proportion of the population, such as those with disabilities, are often overlooked or set aside. For instance, rather than redesign polling places to make them more accessible or purchase more accessible voting machines to accommodate hundreds of disabled voters, a jurisdiction may instead replace inaccessible equipment that will accommodate thousands of nondisabled voters. Inadequate election funding similarly hampers innovation for technology and solutions that are secure and accessible. It means there is no funding to support grants for the development of assistive registration and voting equipment by companies, institutions, or academics. It means there is no funding or incentive for local election officials to experiment with new, more accessible ways to administer elections, even those that are low-cost.

States alone cannot be responsible for funding elections. Although state budgets earmark some money for election administration, it is never near enough. This is especially true now as many state purses are run dry by the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, Congress must step up and provide robust and continuous funding for elections. To be sure, Congress has provided periodic funding for elections, especially in the aftermath of the 2016 election, to address election security concerns and COVID-19 complications. But these have largely been one-time buckets of funding with associated expiration dates. Moreover, the amounts have been a fraction of what experts and election officials say is actually needed. Certainly, the federal funding provided thus far has been a good starting point, but much more is needed to improve election accessibility and protect the fundamental right to vote for generations. Meaningful federal investment in voting accessibility is long overdue.

The Center for American Progress has developed a rough estimate of the total amount of funding needed to make necessary upgrades to election infrastructure, implement pro-voter solutions, and improve accessibility. This estimate covers a broad array of programs and initiatives that will make elections better for all voters. Indeed, guaranteeing full and equal voting rights for disabled voters is not limited to purchasing accessible voting machines or updating election website interfaces; it also requires implementation of smart election practices that will strengthen democracy generally. Thus, in addition to costs associated with accessibility programs, CAP’s estimate covers costs associated with adequately staffed polling places; poll worker training and recruitment; meaningful post-election audits that confirm election outcomes; voter education campaigns; vulnerability testing of election systems; improved mail-ballot printing and sorting capabilities; ballot tracking programs; public financing of elections; redistricting reforms; and resources to reduce polling place wait times, among other things.

CAP estimates that at least $8 billion is needed for fiscal years 2022–2026 to fund important programs that will help improve election access and spur innovation around accessible voting, including:

A new accessibility office at the Election Assistance Commission

A national resource center on accessible voting

Full funding for the U.S. Access Board

Comprehensive congressional investigation into electoral barriers for disabled people

Federal grants for studying barriers to voting for people with disabilities and developing nontechnical and technical solutions

New Democracy Technology and Resilience Laboratory at an appropriate federal agency with disability access expertise

Challenge.gov competitions for developing secure and accessible voting solutions for people with disabilities

Periodic audits of NVRA compliance carried out by certain federal agencies

Election accessibility audits carried out by state and local officials

This funding estimate is not exact, nor does it reflect costs for many supplemental policies that are needed. That said, it offers policymakers a good jumping-off point for determining necessary funding levels.

Conduct comprehensive accessibility audits on election systems with reform mandates

The first step to improving election accessibility is for policymakers to conduct full accountings of ways that existing election systems block voters with disabilities from participating. Comprehensive election accessibility audits will help policymakers and experts identify specific problems or inadequacies with registration and voting systems so that they can design effective, targeted solutions. Accessibility audits should be carried out at all levels of government, and findings from such audits must be used to form the basis for clear reform mandates with hard implementation deadlines. Accessibility audits conducted by the federal government will undoubtably be more high-level than those conducted by state and local entities; federal assessments will paint a broad picture of accessibility issues affecting disabled voters across the nation’s patchwork election landscape. Localized audits, on the other hand, will more precisely pinpoint failings in jurisdiction-specific infrastructure and election processes. These audits are complementary to one another, and both are needed to improve accessibility for people who are disabled.

Critically, accessibility audits must not be utilized as a tool to suppress voters of colors and members of other historically underrepresented groups. Policymakers have previously misused ADA noncompliance as the basis for suppressing voters of color and voters living in low-income neighborhoods. This insidious practice was on full display in Georgia during the 2018 election cycle. There, state officials hired an outside consultant to evaluate polling places for ADA compliance. But that review was not carried out in good faith. Instead, Georgia officials used the ADA as an excuse to close polling places in majority-Black and low-income neighborhoods located in Randolph County, thereby forcing these voters to travel far distances to cast a ballot. Policymakers in Georgia could have chosen to open temporary replacement sites in those communities that fully complied with ADA accessibility standards and remained convenient to all voters who lived in those areas. Instead, officials sought to close the sites down completely, making it more difficult for both disabled and nondisabled individuals in these neighborhoods to vote, increasing the burdens placed on Black and working-class disabled voters, and effectively discounting the experiences of disabled Black voters by seeking to pit disabled voters and nondisabled voters of color against each other. Policymakers must advance policies that enhance access for all voters and not implement policies that benefit some communities at the expense of others.

Accessibility audits by states and localities

States and local jurisdictions must coordinate on audits assessing the accessibility of voter registration systems and processes; election administration procedures and worker trainings; polling place practices; voting machinery and location check-in equipment; and the availability and distribution of election-related information and materials. In Colorado, county-by-county audits are conducted after every election to review whether accessibility standards are being met. In auditing these systems, state and local officials must consult with disability advocates and community activists representing voters with varying needs. Doing so is necessary to ensure accessibility audits fully capture election insufficiencies affecting voters across all disabilities. Audits could be carried out by independent commissions comprising state and local election officials as well as disability advocates and voters. Alternatively, audits could be overseen by the state’s top election official, such as the secretary of state, whose office would be responsible for coordinating auditing processes with and collecting information from local elections offices and governments. Another option is for a given state’s local jurisdictions to enter into informal or formal pacts or agreements to conduct accessibility audits and share information among themselves. This may be an especially good option in states whose top election official is unmotivated to carry out an audit or who cannot be relied upon to do so fairly.

Accessibility audits should be carried out in haste so that necessary improvements can be made before the 2022 midterm election. Disabled voters must not be disadvantaged in yet another federal election. Of course, some policy changes may take longer to implement; accessible election equipment can take a long time to acquire. Still, a great deal can be accomplished over the next year and a half, and policymakers must aim to adopt as many positive changes as possible before November 2022. Audits of this kind should be conducted regularly following future elections to account for polling place changes and equipment or resource updates.

Accessibility audits by the federal government

Accessibility audits on U.S. election systems should also be carried out by the federal government. To date, federal entities have conducted only a handful of studies or assessments on election accessibility and compliance with federal voting laws protecting disabled voters. The GAO polling place study, referenced earlier in this report, provides one of the only publicly available comprehensive analyses of voting location accessibility by the federal government. The federal government has not carried out a formal review of NVRA compliance by government entities or federally funded programs for many years. Nonprofit organizations and academics have helped fill the information gap by conducting independent accessibility audits and reviews of election systems. These studies have been hugely valuable and should continue. However, scholars and nonprofit organizations with limited resources should not be solely responsible for collecting and sharing important data on disability voting access with lawmakers and the public.

The federal government must be more intentional in employing its vast resources to pinpoint and assess access issues for disabled voters in federal elections. To do this, Congress could commission a new GAO study that more comprehensively reviews election accessibility across a range of categories and factors, not just polling places. Another option is for Congress to investigate election accessibility on par with the investigation it conducted on Russian interference in the 2016 election. This targeted bipartisan investigation, which took place over many months, laid the basis for a series of reports by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence assessing Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Congress has occasionally held hearings on disability voting access, but this proposed approach would be much more intensive. An investigation to this scale would appropriately signify the urgency of the matter and would produce the first single, comprehensive examination of access issues across the whole system of elections and politics. In addition to investigating inaccessible polling places, voter registration systems, and in-person and mail-voting systems, the investigation would cover NVRA noncompliance, money in politics obstacles, challenges in running for office, and inaccessible political campaign websites and events. Like the congressional investigation into Russian interference, an investigation by Congress into barriers to participation for disabled voters would culminate in a series of reports that policymakers, advocates, and political campaigns could rely upon as they adopt reforms.

At the executive level, President Biden could direct the U.S. Access Board, along with agencies such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and U.S. Department of Agriculture, to investigate NVRA compliance by federally funded programs in order to help identify gaps in registration services. Additionally, like President Barack Obama’s Presidential Commission on Election Administration, President Biden could assemble a bipartisan working group tasked with undertaking a full assessment of barriers for disabled voters in federal elections. This initiative would be different from past commissions in that it would focus exclusively on election administration problems for disabled voters. As a general matter, disability representation and accessibility expertise must be improved across the federal government, including at agencies such as NIST and other entities with involvement in voting and election matters. The administration should provide federal agencies with clear mandates to make accessibility and the needs of disabled people a central consideration in the policymaking process. NIST’s historical focus on voting system “usability” does not check the box; usability and accessibility are two separate things.

Adopt pro-voter policies and meaningful accessibility standards for elections

Once policymakers have identified existing problems, they can begin adopting solutions. It is pertinent for policymakers to adopt affirmative voting policies proven to help disabled voters and nondisabled voters alike participate in elections. Priority should be given to extended early-voting periods and polling place hours, along with same-day voter registration. These policies “can be highly beneficial for voters who have inflexible schedules because they rely on personal care attendants, paratransit, and other factors that are out of their control to get around.” Flexible vote-by-mail policies enabling any American to cast a mail ballot regardless of excuse should also be prioritized, as should online voter registration systems. As outlined in previous sections, mail voting is preferred by disabled voters, and online registration enables disabled voters to register at home safely. It is essential for policymakers to ensure both systems are fully accessible. This means reconfiguring election webpages and forms for compatibility with assistive aids. Election webpages must be outfitted with clear, straightforward language and explanatory graphics to ensure access for registrants and voters across all disabilities. Maryland has offered disabled voters an online tool for filling out mail ballots independently since 2014 and is reportedly willing to share its technology for free with other states. In 2020, several states—such as Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia—enhanced accessibility for mail-voting systems in response to litigation brought by disability advocates. In Virginia, officials offered blind and low-vision people the option to receive a mail ballot electronically with screen reader-compatible technology.

Before adopting any one pro-voter policy, policymakers must carefully consider potential impacts on disabled voters. While most pro-voter solutions benefit disabled and nondisabled people equally, some do not. For example, Election Day holidays and AVR programs operating solely out of DMVs are well intentioned but can have unintended consequences for voters with certain disabilities. Election Day holidays can make voting hard for those relying on home health aides who take the day off. Past sections of this report discussed how disabled people are less likely to frequent DMVs compared with nondisabled voters, which risks them being shut out from AVR programs limited solely to those agencies. Exclusive reliance on paper ballots is another example. From an election security standpoint, hand-marked mail ballots are the safest, most reliable, and hackproof voting method. They enable jurisdictions to carry out robust, dependable post-election audits to confirm the accuracy of election outcomes. But paper ballots are not accessible to many disabled people and, as such, cannot be the sole voting option. Policymakers had security in mind when they moved to all-paper elections, but in doing so, they overlooked consequences for voters who cannot mark or handle a paper ballot.

To be sure, all these policies are good and necessary. They simply require a bit of fine-tuning to be accessible. For instance, rather than turn Election Day into a holiday, employers should be mandated to provide workers with extremely flexible paid time off, including during early voting and on Election Day. This achieves the same goal as Election Day holidays—ensuring people have ample opportunity to vote—without disadvantaging disabled voters who require assistance. Additionally, AVR programs currently restricted to DMVs should be expanded to include education and health care agencies that more frequently serve disabled people. Technology improvements are still needed to make returning voted ballots electronically safe. In the meantime, policymakers should invest in mobile vote vehicles that travel to disabled voters’ homes and provide them with accessible technology needed to cast ballots secretly and independently. In-person paper-based voting systems must be coupled with widely and readily available assistive technology, such as ballot marking devices, that poll workers are fully trained on how to use.

Additional pro-voter policies that must be adopted to close participation gaps between disabled and nondisabled voters include:

All poll workers must be educated on how to respectfully interact with disabled voters and must receive comprehensive training on use and functionalities of accessible election equipment. Jurisdictions should hire poll workers who are disabled. All workers must receive cultural competency training and be fully trained on disabled voters’ voting rights.

Voting locations must be situated near public transportation and must be set in ADA-accessible buildings with pickup and drop-off areas that comply with requirements outlined in the ADA checklist.

Ballot drop boxes where voters can return mail ballots must be plentiful, designed for ADA compliance, and conveniently located across communities with accessible paths of travel to ensure equal access.

Voting locations must offer flexible and convenient curbside voting options for disabled voters. Voters utilizing this option must be able to notify poll workers that they have arrived without reliance on cellular phones or having someone accompany them to the voting location. Curbside voting areas must be monitored by election staff throughout voting hours to ensure limited wait times. Having staff monitor the area can also help reduce potential harassment from electioneers.

States and localities should designate a chief voting accessibility officer tasked with assisting policymakers as they adopt and implement pro-voter policies in ways that guarantee equal voting access for all people with disabilities.

Officials must provide plain language formatting and American Sign Language translations for all literature around voter rights and responsibilities.

Rescind anti-voting rules and reform guardianship laws

In addition to adopting pro-voter policies, policymakers must rescind harmful anti-voting rules. Indeed, affirmative voting policies do not help disabled voters if felon disenfranchisement policies and guardianship laws block them from participating in the first place. Similarly, strict voter ID laws, restrictions on mail voting, and harsh signature matching or ballot collection rules prevent people with disabilities from fully utilizing policies such as vote by mail and early voting that can help shrink participation gaps between disabled and nondisabled voters. Equal voting access will not be achieved unless and until these restrictive and discriminatory practices are overturned. Strict voter ID laws should be eliminated entirely, and justice-involved individuals must have their voting rights restored immediately upon release from detention. Signature matching processes require substantial improvements. Ideally, signature matching processes would be altogether eliminated and replaced with more equitable and nondiscriminatory methods of verifying voter identity. Unfortunately, political realities prevent this from happening anytime soon; signature matching is here to stay, at least for the time being. In reviewing voter signatures, there should always be a strong presumption of validity; before being rejected, the signature should, preferably, be reviewed by at least three people, including at least one person of a different political party than the party of the voter. All three reviewers must independently conclude that the signature is invalid before a ballot is rejected. Jurisdictions nationwide must accept signature marks or stamps that are sometimes relied upon by disabled voters, and officials must rigorously train election staff not to reject ballots on which these marks are used.

The rising tide of anti-voting efforts being witnessed across the country is deeply worrisome for all Americans but is especially so for disabled voters who will be among those excessively burdened. More than 360 anti-voting bills have been introduced in states, many of which would place substantial restrictions on vote by mail, early voting, and registration access. All voters will be required to jump through a multitude of hoops to make their voices heard, but disabled voters, who more often rely on flexible voting and registration options, will be unfairly disadvantaged. It is imperative that these anti-voting efforts be culled or overridden by federal legislation.

In reforming guardianship laws, policymakers should rely on the ABA’s recommended standard. Specifically, the right to vote must be retained for someone under guardianship unless a court decides that all the following criteria are met:

The exclusion of voting rights is based on a determination by a court of competent jurisdiction.

Appropriate due process protections have been afforded to the person under guardianship.

The court finds that the person under guardianship cannot communicate, with or without accommodations, a specific desire to participate in the voting process.

The above findings are established by clear and convincing evidence.

The right to vote is fundamental, and depriving someone of it should be exceedingly difficult. The ABA’s standard was incorporated into the Uniform Law Commission’s Uniform Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Other Protective Arrangements Act in 2017 and is increasingly featured in state guardianship reform legislation.

“If I can in some way indicate that I have a desire to vote—that is the base standard that should be applied. … It should be the same standard as everyone else.” Michelle Bishop, voting access and engagement manager for the National Disability Rights Network

Develop safe and accessible election technology

Advancements in election technology are needed to promote voting access for disabled voters and to ensure they can cast a secret, independent ballot. As described in previous sections, disabled voters currently have limited options for registering, requesting ballots, and obtaining important election information in ways that are fully accessible. At present, there is a lack of technology that would enable disabled people to vote and return voted ballots electronically safely and securely. Ballot marking devices such as ExpressVote offer disabled voters good options at in-person voting locations, but ingenuity is lacking. Well-intentioned attempts by local officials to develop new accessible voting technology have failed to garner support from security experts or have been unsuccessful due to logistical complications or funding constraints. Some private companies have attempted to fill accessible technology gaps with mobile voting apps and other products designed to help disabled people participate in elections. But some of these technologies have suffered problems, and there are serious questions surrounding the role private corporations should play in outfitting U.S. elections. Today’s corporate election system vendors are often criticized for their lack of transparency and oversight; in 2018, one election system vendor was found to have ties with a Russian oligarch.

Voting accessibility is required by law, and governments must take responsibility for ensuring that right is fully realized by investing in the development of secure and accessible voting technology. The federal government has an especially critical role to play given the vast resources at its disposal. In addition to funding pilot programs for secure voting methods that enable disabled voters to register and vote from home privately and independently, it should consider creating a new entity tasked with developing technologies to improve participation for disabled and nondisabled Americans alike and to protect democratic institutions more generally. President Biden recently proposed a new agency modeled off the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to spur health care innovations and propel vaccine and treatment development into hyperdrive. Innovations to protect U.S. democracy and the fundamental right to vote equally deserve this level of urgency.

Such an agency or department—let’s call it the Democracy Technology and Resilience Laboratory—could be housed at any number of federal agencies but would ideally be situated in agencies with accessibility expertise, such as the U.S. Access Board or HHS. The EAC, which is working to expand its institutional accessibility expertise and already helps develop the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) for election-related technology, could also be a good fit for the new laboratory. Alternatively, the lab could be housed within NIST or the National Science Foundation (NSF), which already have some of the built-in infrastructure. NIST, like the EAC, helps develop the VVSG and has recently requested public comments “about barriers to private and independent voting for people with disabilities,” while President Biden has proposed a new technology directorate for the NSF. Disability rights advocates have voiced concern over a lack of disability and accessibility expertise at both NIST and NSF; the two agencies will need to substantially improve staffing expertise in these areas before they can house a laboratory of this kind.

All responsibilities currently residing with NIST’s Information Technology Laboratory pertaining to accessible voting technology and evaluations of accredited voting-equipment testing institutions could be transferred over to this new lab. Additionally, the Democracy Technology and Resilience Lab would develop secure and accessible election equipment as well as rights-respecting sociotechnical technology standards for emerging election-related innovations. This entity should work in close consultation with the U.S. Access Board and could be tasked with developing formulas that lawmakers and election officials can rely upon for determining how many accessible voting machines are needed at each polling place. Developing a free accessible machine calculator based on population size, voters’ needs, and past voting patterns would greatly assist jurisdictions in determining their procurement needs and protecting voting access within their communities. Jurisdictions should be legally required to adhere to the formula, and HAVA’s one-machine-per-polling-place rule should be amended to read “each polling place shall have a sufficient number of accessible voting machines determined by the formula, but not less than one.” Importantly, any government entity responsible for developing election technology and setting election technology standards must be subject to oversight by an independent authority and be staffed by people with civil rights backgrounds covering accessibility, privacy, cybersecurity, racial and gender equity, and LGBTQ rights, among other things. Disability advocates must be employed by the lab and must be consulted on all matters pertaining to technology development and voting solutions.

There are other ways the federal government can drive innovation around accessible voting solutions and technology. Federal agencies—such as HHS, NSF, NIST, EAC, and the U.S. Access Board—can initiate a series of new Challenge.gov prize competitions for developing and studying accessible voting technology and programs to drive participation among the disability community. The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 allows any federal agency head to carry out prize competitions with the potential to spur innovation. As of 2020, more than 1,000 prize competitions have been carried out by federal agencies; in fiscal year 2018, total prize money awarded through federal competitions exceeded $37 million, with a median prize amount of $80,000. Federal challenge competitions have “produced concepts for the next ‘lunar loo’ (space toilet), an improved digital wallet user interface, protecting fish from water infrastructure, opioid detection in international mail, and ‘getting out the count’ for the census” as well as for self-driving cars. Prizes can be monetary and/or nonmonetary in nature. Besides money, the winner could be formally recognized by President Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris as part of an official ceremony honoring other democracy heroes.

Future winners of these prize competitions could be in the running for the National Medal of Technology and Innovation or the National Medal of Science. The National Medal of Technology and Innovation is administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Patent and Trademark Office and awarded to “those who have made lasting contributions to America’s competitiveness, standard of living, and quality of life through technological innovation, as well as those who have made substantial contributions to strengthening the Nation’s technological workforce.” The National Medal of Science is administered by the NSF and awarded “to individuals deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding cumulative contributions to knowledge in the physical, biological, mathematical, engineering, or behavioral or social sciences, in service to the Nation.” Nominees for these awards are submitted to the president for consideration by committees comprising leading experts in engineering, computer science, mathematics, and social sciences, among other topics. Surely, solving technological tensions between security and accessibility and expanding access to voting for disabled voters is worthy of such esteemed honors.

Crowdsource low- and no-cost accessible voting solutions

High-tech solutions for improving election accessibility and keeping elections secure are necessary. But developing them will take time and could even be cost-prohibitive if Congress fails to provide continuous election funding. Considering these realities, election officials and voting advocates must work together to develop low- and no-cost solutions for making processes for registering to vote and casting ballots fully accessible. Over the years, local election officials have come up with cost-effective, straightforward fixes to address accessibility challenges. For example, in 2020, election officials in Iowa created an accessibility Quick Check guide for polling places statewide that doubled as a measuring tool for ensuring polling place doorways and internal and external spaces meet ADA accessibility standards. It was a simple but highly effective solution that required only those materials that every polling place already had on hand. It is this kind of cost-smart ingenuity that must be promoted in the immediate and near future. Jurisdictions should improve communication across state lines to crowdsource their low- and no-cost ideas since the accessibility challenges found in one jurisdiction can often also be found elsewhere. Thus, while jurisdictions and Congress must invest in new safe and accessible technology, obstacles in accessibility can also be addressed by simply being more creative and innovative with resources already on hand.

Enhance enforcement of federal voting laws

Finally, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) must prioritize enforcement of federal laws protecting disabled Americans’ voting rights. The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division was severely underutilized and its mission subverted during the Trump administration. Voting rights violations against disabled and nondisabled voters were not prioritized. Federal mandates requiring election accessibility under the ADA, HAVA, NVRA, and other statutes cannot protect disabled voters if they are not enforced. The DOJ bears responsibility for ensuring jurisdictions operate in full adherence to federal law. Federal enforcement proceedings or even threats of legal action for violations of federal voting laws are powerful tools for improving compliance. Past enforcement actions by the DOJ have resulted in expanded voter registration opportunities at state disability services offices, improved polling place accessibility and poll worker training, and enhanced access to accessible voting equipment at voting locations. President Biden has already demonstrated a strong commitment to protecting the fundamental right to vote and has nominated seasoned and dedicated civil rights lawyers to top positions at the DOJ and to spearhead the agency’s Civil Rights Division. There is every reason to believe that this new DOJ will be fully committed to enforcing federal voting laws and protecting disabled voters’ right to vote. But after decades of having their rights overlooked, many disabled voters may remain skeptical of the government’s commitment to enforcing federal access requirements. The DOJ must prove itself to be a trustworthy ally in the fight for full and equal voting access, and it can accomplish this by aggressively enforcing federal voting and accessibility standards.

Conclusion

Although research shows that voting access for disabled voters is improving, there is still much work to be done. Making U.S. elections more accessible will require hard work on the part of lawmakers and election officials as well as significant input from affected voters and community advocates. Policymakers will need to make difficult decisions that weigh myriad goals and interests, such as accessibility and security, privacy, and independence. Ensuring that disabled voters have full and equal access to the ballot box is not optional—it is a federal mandate that must be realized. Policymakers have numerous tools available to improve election systems and make them more accessible, and they must employ them now with all urgency before the next major election.

About the authors

Danielle Root is the director of voting rights and access to justice on the Democracy and Government Reform team at the Center for American Progress.

Mia Ives-Rublee is the director of the Disability Justice Initiative at the Center.

NBA Finals Game Four Picks (Ep. 1048)

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NBA Finals Game Four Picks

The guys (@GamblingPodcast) are back giving out their NBA Finals game four picks with the help of NBA Gambling Podcast co-host Munaf Manji (@SportsNerd824). They talk about some of their favorite alternate line spreads for game four, the latest in the NBA Finals MVP race including the odds for Chris Paul and Giannis Antetokounmpo, plus some leans in their favorite NBA Finals game four player props. Plus some final thoughts on Draft Day! Where Ryan Kramer will be drafting Underdog Fantasy best ball teams for 24 hours straight!

When @seantgreen gave out Chris Paul it was +2500 to win NBA Finals MVP. He’s now -140 favorite ???? #RallyTheValley #NBAFinals pic.twitter.com/DDd8Q4ZsWg — Sports Gambling Podcast (@GamblingPodcast) July 9, 2021

Podcast Video

NBA Finals Game Four Odds

Conf Seed Team Sprd Odds Total Date/Time Team Sprd ML OU East 3 MIL Bucks 205 6.5 7/13 PHO Suns 155 220.5 West 2 PHO Suns -1.5 -265 6:10 PM MIL Bucks -4.5 -185

Podcast Transcription

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Set up an underdog fantasy.com with the promo code SGP N and receive a free $25 entry to use in basketball mania, two for a chance to win $1 million and make sure to tune in to draft day on July 13th, starting at 1:00 PM, or Ryan Kramer will attempt to draft for 24 hours straight. And of course, don’t forget to download the SGPs app in the app store or Google play store.

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Speaker 2 (1m 44s): So, all right. So I spent some time aligning my manna cheese and organizing my thoughts and doing that and getting ready for the, the big draft day upon us. And during this, this entire time, the league continued to turn Shawn and I came back and it was almost like I didn’t miss anything too. Here we go. Let’s go. NBA finals, adjusted spreads. Let’s make some money

Speaker 3 (2m 12s): Like sands through the hourglass or the days of our league.

Speaker 0 (2m 20s): And this edition of the days of our legs. Scott Foster remains undefeated in all the games in the last 11 consecutive playoff games. Or Scott Foster has been the referee, Chris Paul. He hasn’t won some say there’s some bad blood there between those two divas. That is, that was just what I saw. I mean, I was already going to be on the bucks, but when I saw he was rapping, it was just like, all right,

Speaker 2 (2m 46s): Easy money. And I hope you got on that adjusted spread because it, it, it, it like they always do a five point game becomes a 20 point game. You can get to three to one on your money, Sean. I, the NBA is just an easy money league. It’s like betting on the bachelor. I don’t mean to be offensive to those who like the bachelor.

Speaker 0 (3m 7s): Now, if my wife listened to the show, she would be super offended. Ryan, of course, we’re talking hoops, talking to the association, man. Hopefully people have been listening to our NBA pigs cause they’ve been red hot. Hopefully people are doing what we’ve been doing heading over to win bet.com w Y and N B E T dot C O M. Get out over there. Get that $500 risk free bet. Again, they got that sweet part lay boost. You’re already making money. Why not make it a little bit more with the sweet, sweet parlayed boost again?

I mean the win one of the best sports books in Las Vegas and now one of the best sports betting apps again, so easy to download and set up, just go to Debbie Y and N B E t.com more states getting the ad and every day as a, as wind takes over the world, let’s go baby. W Y N N P E t.com. Download the app here, joining us on the line to talk hoops. One of the hosts of the NBA gambling podcasts and the MLB gambling podcast and a writer over@sportsgamblingpodcast.com does it all for the network, a true champion of SGPs Munaf Manji Munaf I see it in the zoom video screen and I see her eyes all over the place.

Cause you’re also watching the home run Derby while I helping us grind out game four. Thank you for joining us. What are you sweating out on the Derby?

Speaker 4 (4m 37s): I just got under way a Trey man seen, he just finished his first there, the first round he just had, I think he had 24 and now Matt, Olson’s about to start. I did have Matt Olson to beat him in a first round match up. So I’m going to need some, a piece of magic here from Matt Olson, 25 number.

Speaker 0 (4m 57s): Hopefully, hopefully you cash that get a little heat there. Well, and of course, NBA finals. It’s two one right now heading into game four little updates. We did a tweet out all the people that are alive in our NBA, free roll contests. And of course you can. We’re giving away a thousand bucks basically to whoever nails the team and the number of games in the finals. So right now there’s a, there’s a decently long list of people who are on the bucks and sons and either to win in five, six or seven.

So again, head over to our Twitter at gambling podcast to see the full list. If you’re in the mix, trying to give away a thousand bucks and well, we will, someone will be the closest. I still think, I still think sons in six, I’m sticking with that. Where have you gone moon off with the series? Have you adjusted your thoughts? I mean, even as a guy who likes sons in six, this was a game I thought Milwaukee was going to win and obviously they to win Jada’s is coming up huge in essentially a more or less elimination game.

Have you changed your thoughts on the series?

Speaker 4 (6m 6s): No, I, when I did the preview all over on our website, I did pick Phoenix in six also. And I’m sticking by it still. I think the league wants this to be extended, right? Especially with this week with not many sports going on, all eyes are gonna be on the NBA finals. So they got to get those ratings up. They got to collect that money. So I think I know we’ll get into game four in a little bit, but I think Phoenix is still the superior team against the Milwaukee bucks.

Speaker 2 (6m 34s): Wow. This is the NBA. All right. If they deployed, what did they do? They deployed the, the cooler. They needed

Speaker 0 (6m 42s): Scott Foster. And again, it’s hilarious. Cause like even the mainstream media now knows the Scott Foster narrative. I saw her buddy Kendrick Perkins, who, I mean shout out to Kendrick Perkins and his agent. Cause that guy I feel like is on every show. Now, every time I turn on and he’s got, he’s got a giant beard. He’s like, it takes up a lot of the screen. He’s got some good takes, but he was, he wanted to get out in front of the Scott Foster narrative of saying, Hey, let’s be real. This was about the bucks playing better.

And they did, but still come on. There’s gotta be something in that Scott Foster narrative. It did the refs didn’t matter in game three, but it was funny that even like a mainstream guy, like Kendrick Perkins is already aware of the Scott Foster narrative and didn’t want to discredit the, the

Speaker 2 (7m 26s): Bucks win at all by saying it was Scott Foster. Well, I mean, look, you can start doing a little bit of layman’s research. I mean, what was the free throw count? Yeah. Okay. So maybe they didn’t matter in the game, but that usually when a team needs to win or when the league needs the team to win, suddenly they’re taking a lot of free throws and that becomes a narrative, right? Moni Williams, smart guy getting ahead of that narrative calling out right away. Like, whoa, what? And now the NBA is like, oh shit, people are going to be looking for this.

We got to calm this down a little bit. Look, they ended up with Phoenix, Milwaukee. Yeah. We, we talked about what would happen if this was the case. It has to go along. It has to go all the way. I think because the NBA is like, fuck, we sold a lot of, we sold a lot of stuff and I don’t think we’re getting those impressions

Speaker 0 (8m 15s): And taco bell shout at the taco bell. But they’re doing that. If the team comes back from halftime, you get free tacos. And I was sitting on Milwaukee minus four. So I thought I’d be in a spot of, you know, sons come back. And then I w but then I realized like, oh man, I, I, you know, I gotta, I wanna find this hedge spot of if they, if I lose my bet, I still get the free tacos. Cause I was doing the math and like, wait, if sons lose by three, then I lose my vet and I don’t get free tacos. They really need to factor in the second half line here, taco bell.

And I should be getting some free taco bell just for bringing this up. You, you, you mentioned the free throws Ryan and son’s shot 16 in Milwaukee is 26. But if you look at it, even closer, sons were getting a lot of the late call, a lot of calls late. And to the point that Booker was caught on Mike, same to the ref. Something like we don’t need these calls now, like the game’s over with a couple

Speaker 2 (9m 10s): Of minutes left, which is pretty funny. They make those calls late. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (9m 14s): So that when you look at the sat lines, it doesn’t look as bad reffing aside. I mean, shout to Yana. I said it did feel like game three last night kind of stepped into a, another, you know, another stratosphere almost 41, 12 and six. He’s only the second player in NBA history to record back to back games of 40 plus points and 10 rebounds in the finals. He’s actually had more 40 point games in the finals. Then Kevin Duran, Steph Curry, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, Larry Bird, Karl Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wilt Chamberlain.

That being said, I still don’t think Yonis is enough to kind of carry the, the bucks to a series when, I mean, one-off, if we’re wrong and the bucks end up winning the series, what do you think has to happen from Milwaukee’s point of view for, I mean, holiday had a big game quietly, 21, 5 and nine. And I think, you know, obviously Yonis has been playing pretty good throughout the series, but what do you think has to happen for the box to be able to walk away here with a w then he’s got foster for every single game?

Speaker 4 (10m 23s): I like that. No, obviously it’s got to start with Chris Middleton and drew holiday, right? Joe holiday had a better game last night after absolute stinkers in game one and two, he came out and shot the ball. Well, last night, too, like you said, 21 points. It was five out of 10 from three point land eight to 14 from the floor overall. So that’s what they’re going to need. I think they’re also gonna need Chris Milton to step up. He’s going to have to score a minimum of 20 points to really help out this bucks often to kind of take that pressure off of Yonis. I mean, Yonis is getting whatever he wants inside the pain.

If you look at his shot chart, they have no answer for him inside. And like we’ve talked about on our NBA gambling podcast is that the front court of the Phoenix suns is kind of thinning up now with Darrio Sarge out with a torn ACL. And last night they bugged the Andre Eaton in foul trouble early on much to do with Scott Foster of course, but, and that’s,

Speaker 0 (11m 18s): And that’s the sneaky way that they can impact a game is the two quick fouls early. Cause then if you look at the stats, you’re like, oh, I, I, it doesn’t jump out at you, but two quick fouls early, really, especially for a big man, like eight and really restricts your minutes. And that’s, that’s the way hypothetically, if you’re looking to adjust the outcome or kind of, you know, move the ball a little bit to one side, that’s how you do it. Right? Exactly. And

Speaker 4 (11m 44s): Then we saw that the victim last night was Deondre Aden for, for the Phoenix sun. So, but going forward, obviously you’re not going to have Scott Foster, Scott Foster. So I’m looking for those two guys, Chris Middleton and ju holiday to really step up if they’re going to have a chance to get back in the series or possibly even try to win it.

Speaker 2 (12m 3s): Yeah. I mean, I, I w I don’t know. I think, I mean, again, right? Like what happened in this series? The teams have won at home. What do we say about a series?

Speaker 0 (12m 12s): Doesn’t start Ryan until, until a road team gets a victory. And, and I, I guess if I was building the case for a bucks, or if I was a bucks fan, I would hold out onto the hope that they’re eight and one so far in the season at home. So maybe there is a world where they can, where they can get things done and, and kind of keep, you know, keep this momentum up. It actually brings us to a shout out to prop swap head over to prop swap.com. And it, you know, right. Basically what we’re talking about last week of prop swap customer sold a $500 40 to one son’s championship ticket for $16,000 after the sons went up to oh, in the finals, 30 extra turns.

So, you know, did pretty good on it. He almost got the full 40, and now he basically sold it for minus 400. When, if you wanted to get down on that game, if it was minus 500 everywhere else, if you were just to buy that. And now that guy looks like a genius because after the bucks won, I’m sure Ryan, do you have what the, when has the adjusted price

Speaker 2 (13m 15s): After this? Yeah, the bucks are still two to one and I think,

Speaker 0 (13m 19s): Yes, suns are down to minus 2 65. So that guy sold at the exact right time again. That’s why you want to use prop swap.com and use that promo code SGP get $500 bonus on your, on your first deposit, promo code SGP, a swap.com.

Speaker 2 (13m 35s): Taking that point a little further though. I mean, what has happened in the series home teams have won. The favorites have won and yet, and yet the price has gone from Milwaukee plus 1 65 to Milwaukee, plus 2 0 5. And if anything, you could argue that Milwaukee is kind of trending in the right direction where maybe Phoenix isn’t. So you look, you mentioned it, but Milwaukee has only lost one game at home. This post season, a game to an Atlanta team that gave they were feisty, right? They came out three point win and, and kudos to them.

But again, I don’t see why the bucks are two to one on the series price right now. Love Phoenix, LA, happy for the city. I think happy for a rich fat baby McKee seems like Arizona sports, maybe trending back in the right direction. But I, I think this is going to turn into a three game series and that’s that. And I think any way you can get money that this is going to go along, that this is going to be a series that we’re going to get as many games as possible.

I like the Phoenix and six angle, because it does seem like it would be freely fucked up if Phoenix doesn’t win the championship. Somehow I do feel like they’re the team that deserves it more. And last thing I’ll say, cause you did say one thing that kinda caught me off guard. Sean, did you say Kobe Bryant has less 40 point games in the finals than Yannis?

Speaker 0 (14m 56s): Yeah, let me, let me pull up the notes. But yeah, he was

Speaker 2 (14m 60s): The oldest in there. That’s the ultimate Kobe hater line. Like, look, dude, that was mostly shack. That was mostly shack.

Speaker 0 (15m 7s): You’re looking to throw shade at Kobe. Just say Yonis has more 40 point games. That’s a shocking that blew my mind.

Speaker 2 (15m 14s): Duran. Not shocking. He just joined super teams, but yeah, I don’t know. And I, and I think, you know, back to what was the spread for game three, Sean, I was boxed minus four bucks minus four. And what was the final game? 20 point game. So I think if you’re going to play the bucks in this one, you absolutely head over to those adjusted points, spreads. And you know, I don’t know what kind of gambler you might be, Sean, but I I’d be happy to sit in that two to one range minus nine and a half plus 200.

And you know, you want to keep going, why not the biggest juice?

Speaker 0 (15m 49s): So this is game four. You’re loading up on bucks. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15m 52s): We’re to, we’re going to level up. It’s going to give the MBA a nice guarantee of getting through the weekend into another week of NBA basketball, being on the forefront, right? More MBA content, where we can talk about how Charles Barkley can play golf now. And it’s a completely

Speaker 0 (16m 8s): And shout out to Larry, the cable guy, friend of the program put up a pretty good number.

Speaker 2 (16m 13s): Larry, the cable guy, one of the shots of the tournament hole in a shot over the bunker leg. Nailed row. Sorry, we’re getting off on celebrity golf. If you want to have fun bucks minus 14 and a half is plus 400 now. Right?

Speaker 0 (16m 26s): And you’re going, you’re going crazy on bucks. So Milwaukee minus 14 and a half at what

Speaker 2 (16m 31s): I’m saying, if you wanted to go crazy, you can get that afford a one. Okay.

Speaker 0 (16m 35s): And, and, and just kind of coming back to the futures and you said extending the series. I know you’re off the grid, Ryan, but one of my, one of my bets for the NBA finals over you rarely

Speaker 2 (16m 45s): Remind me when you’re doing well on a bet shown

Speaker 0 (16m 48s): Over five and a half games, minus 1 75. That, I mean, again, that felt like easy money. Sun’s in six. I’m still looking at feeling decent at plus four 50. I of course hit my game, won a bet and a Phoenix minus one and a half. I still feel good about that. But what about the NBA finals MVP market? Again, not to self-doubt too much, but on the show we, we were all over or at least me, I gave out Chris Paul as high as, as 25 to one, maybe even 30 to one.

When we went like after game two of that nugget series, I gave out Chris Paul MVP cause the, the sons were plus 900 and he was 2,500. It made no sense. Where are we at with the finals MVP? I know they lost game three, but it still feels like it’s Chris, Paul’s a trophy to lose right now. Would you agree off? Yeah.

Speaker 4 (17m 41s): And if sons, yeah. I mean, we’ve said look at what Devin Booker didn’t do last game. I think Chris Paul has pretty much, pretty much locked this award up Devin Booker three of 14, one of seven from 3.0 only 10 points. So, you know, just based on that Chris ball, if the sons go on to win, he has, is locked up in the, in the books are kind of indicating that I’m seeing that he’s all the way up to minus two 50 for finals right now.

Speaker 2 (18m 8s): Yeah. And Yonis matches the books Moneyline for, for those wonder. Well,

Speaker 0 (18m 11s): And that was another angle that we kind of had on the finals. There was a, there was a decent discrepancy between, I think Yannis was like, plus three 50 for finals MVP, a moon off. I mean, bucks series was like, plus 1 65. He was like three or four to one, depending on where you got it. And that just seemed crazy to me. Who would you think is, is kind of second right now in the finals MVP race, I guess maybe it would be Yannis assuming the end up winning the series.

Speaker 4 (18m 42s): Yeah, it has to be honest. Right? I mean, back to back 40 point games, it’s only been, like you mentioned, it’s only been, this is the second time it’s been done in the NBA finals history. So I think that would be the guy, as far as for Phoenix. There’s not much there. I mean, you haven’t, Chris, Paul’s a war to lose. Yeah.

Speaker 0 (19m 2s): And Booker was actually favored even above Chris Paul coming into the finals, which to me was just crazy. It, it made no sense, like they’re going to give it to a veteran guy like Chris Paul and his, his mid range jumper, even, even in the loss, he was still shooting really well and looked really,

Speaker 2 (19m 20s): It just shows you how much like chalk public money comes in on these, these types of futures market. Well,

Speaker 0 (19m 26s): I think the young kids, they like them, some Devin Booker,

Speaker 2 (19m 29s): Well, I think just apply like the basic logic you might use for fantasy. Like how many versions of this season end up with him do outperforming versus not. And I think, you know, the Booker scenario involved him just scoring a fuck ton of points every game. So the second he had a down game, it’s like, boom, that’s out, Chris. Paul just has to be on the winning team in a lot of the versions where they, where he wins it. He just has to be healthy. And so, yeah, I mean, I saw it all over social media, Shawn, I couldn’t believe it.

Just the Twittersphere is catching, catching the, the same heater that Sean MBA Sean is with these fucking, and even, even futures picks Jeevan

Speaker 0 (20m 9s): Even to start the series though. And again, kind of coming back to what we hit on in the NBA final show sons were minus 200, but Paul was still plus 1 75. Like I, I, I mean, you know, as a, as a market manipulator, it just was screaming hashtag value to me. And it’s, it’s kind of crazy. They didn’t see that coming. All right, moving to the game for kicking off July 13th, AKA tomorrow, if you’re listening to this live six 10 on the west coast, tip-off Kramer, you will be in our five of your best ball draft.

Your draft

Speaker 2 (20m 45s): Day. Will I have to a television to watch the game?

Speaker 0 (20m 51s): I don’t know. Munaf, you’re, you’re an independent party on this issue. Should we allow Ryan to watch the, watch the finals game as well, be distracting, right.

Speaker 4 (20m 60s): I think he’s going to, yeah, he answered the Queen’s going to distract him from, unless he’s trying to kill some hours. And you know, if he’s getting tired, trying to get to the finish line, that might be a good distraction for him. No,

Speaker 0 (21m 11s): No distraction. You can only focus on NBA basketball. I’ll be watching in the studio. I’ll I’ll I’ll come in and give you updates all your water and food bowl.

Speaker 2 (21m 20s): I know I’m going hard for that over on the teams drafted props. So I will not be wasting any time watching the league. It really. And

Speaker 0 (21m 30s): I can’t, again, our studios completely blacked out with like soundproofing and foam and it’s just, we got the American flag, the bright lights. And I just keep thinking it’s the comparisons like an oversea prison where those floating prison interrogation, the off-grid detention center. I mean,

Speaker 2 (21m 48s): I certainly think there’s a chance. I go a little bit crazy. Well,

Speaker 0 (21m 51s): Sleep deprivation will do that to you. And, and depending on how many shares of Daniel Jones you draft, that’s how that’s how crazy we’ll, you know, you’ll be, we see with a lot of Daniel Jones owner shuffling

Speaker 2 (22m 2s): With Daniel Jones from two to 6:00 AM. All right.

Speaker 0 (22m 6s): All right. Let’s talk a game for tipping off six 10 on the west coast box. Now lay in four and a half. They’ve moved to the half point minus 180 5 on the Moneyline sun’s coming back at plus 180 5 total at two 20 and a half odds. Courtesy of wind bet. Munaf what are you looking at for this game? I’m kind of split here, but I, I want to hear your take. What, what, which way you lean in. Yeah,

Speaker 4 (22m 35s): I think that if they’re going to extend this series, this is the opportunity for the bugs to come out and take care of business. Because if this gets up sons three to one, they’re going to wrap it up in game five on their home floor. So I agree with, sorry with Ryan, that load up on the bucks again tomorrow minus four finals artists, alternate lines, alternative spreads, and, and, and take the bucks again tomorrow, because I think that, like you guys mentioned that they’re eight Aiden one at home in the post season so far.

Yeah. The loan loss that they had against Atlanta, that was just a bad spot for them. Right. Because they were coming off a seven game series against the nets and overtime. So I think that was just a bad spot. Other than that, they’ve been absolutely fantastic at home. So I’m back in the bucks again, taking the four points

Speaker 0 (23m 21s): In Atlanta, too. Atlanta is one of those weird teams where they, they, I think they won every game one in all their series, a in the playoffs, which was kind of a weird stack considering how hard it is to win on the road in the playoffs. I’ll roll with you guys. I’m a little, for some reason, I’m thinking this game. I know Kramer has been the Alta alt spread God, and I hate to go against, but that’s why I’m, I’m gonna I’ll stick with Milwaukee. Mountain is four and a half, although I’m, I’m worried this there’s a scenario that we’re due for a good game in this, in this finals, in that game, four is going to end up being the good game and that the spread will actually come into play where Milwaukee ends up winning, like by two or three points.

That being said, though, I, I still with the idea that this Milwaukee has figured out enough and Yannis, you know, what he’s shown, I think can carry them to the victory at home. So the fact that I think they’re going to win, I’m just going to lean that they also cover, but I’m not as I’m not as on board with Kramer in the blowout. I, I think it might be a little

Speaker 2 (24m 26s): Closer. Perhaps if you think it’s going to be a close game, maybe it gets to over time where you can take game tied at the end of the regulation.

Speaker 0 (24m 33s): What is it? 15 to one plus 1400. Let’s go. That’s a real soccer Shonda. I needed. I needed that. Well, speaking of soccer, Sean, of course a rip to England and congrats to Italy. People have been floating the idea out on social media. I was seeing a, I think maybe big cab was chairman in Nevada. I forget who else, but that would you consider an option like this in basketball where after first or second over time, it decided by free throws, which kind of sounds crazy.

But hear me out if it was a double overtime and then five free throws as if they were penalty kicks, that is dramatic as hell. I think I would be on board with it.

Speaker 2 (25m 18s): I don’t, I’m fine. Yeah. That’d be fun. You could also, you could also just do like, you know, put 24 seconds on the clock. One-on-one well, that would be, you get to pick one defender for all five attackers, just like in soccer, one goalkeeper. So a better way to do it. Yeah. I love you. Pick, you know, like that,

Speaker 0 (25m 37s): The guy to defend all five guys, 24 seconds per capper shot. The only, the only thing that’s slightly annoying is one-on-one I feel like it’s hard to RAF and there’d be a lot of guys trying to draw files or whatever that would be the only, but how about this? You have to call your own fouls. Bring the honor back to the game.

Speaker 2 (25m 53s): I was going to say, I think you bring an old timer in like shack or someone to be the official. At that point. I liked that idea. I think we’ve figured out how to

Speaker 0 (26m 1s): Fix basketball over time. We, when we had a rec league after the first overtime, because they needed to get you off the gym, it would just become sudden death. And it would be, it’s a horrible way to play a game because the defense is so passive because they don’t want to risk failure. Because if you just hit one free throw, the game is over. We had a couple of sudden death games that just had hilarious endings because someone who would normally not take a shot with just Chuck something up and it would go in and the cable would be over. But it was mostly because they need the gym after.

And I don’t see that being a problem in the NBA.

Speaker 2 (26m 35s): I dunno. You think they got the rodeo coming through Milwaukee? I don’t know.

Speaker 0 (26m 38s): You got a Taylor swift concert. They got to get to. All right. So we’re all, we’re all triple locking the bucks minus four and a half. I’m going to throw an OT at plus 1400 as a DJ. It’s only fire bed. Kramer’s on the alternate lines. They’re moon off. I know, I know you like doing a lot of work on the props, the prop market, any, I don’t know if the numbers are out yet, but any player props for game four, jump out of you or just angles. You’re thinking to taking.

Speaker 4 (27m 6s): Yeah, I don’t see props listed yet on, on my book, but I think one thing I did want to mention about the total is that the first half has gone under, in all three games and the second half has gone over in all three games. And I think that depending on what number you got yesterday, it landed like right on the number. It feels to 19 and a half for two 20. So I think waiting for a live line, if you do like the over might be your best bet. And I think you got to continue riding with this first half under, because like I said, that is three, you know, in the first, through the first three games of the series.

Yeah,

Speaker 0 (27m 38s): No first half under that’s feels like a lock. And I don’t know what it is. These teams have just been slow to start. And Milwaukee is an interesting team too, because I felt like their shooting was really bad. Those first two games and got a little bit better in game three. It just seemed like less they’re shooting up better. They just got some better looks. It’ll be interesting to see how the sons and, you know, Booker. He only had what, like 10 points last night. It’ll be interesting to see how he bounces back. I’m not a big player prop guy, but I’ll, I’ll throw out a Booker over points just because I think he is, he’s such a pure shooter.

I don’t think he’s going to have two off games and they’ll probably adjust it enough to keep things interesting. So I’ll throw that out as well. Give me Devin Booker over points. Assuming that it posts that something reasonable there.

Speaker 2 (28m 28s): Yeah. I mean, I, I can tell you what it is shown. I’m looking out, pull that up. Devin Booker points, 27 and a half. Yeah. Give me the over. It feels a smidge lower, right? Yeah.

Speaker 0 (28m 39s): I mean, he’s, he, he’s good for high twenties, most games. I know he’s on the road, but I just don’t think. And who was on him? Most of the game, it was holiday. I think who I think did a D you know, obviously did a decent job on him, but he just, he had some bad shooting luck too. I, I think over as the play for him, even though I do like the box laying four and a half, all right. As we close things out here, moon off any, any locks for a Kramer’s draft day, which will be happening tomorrow.

Again, 1:00 PM Pacific underdog, fantasy promo Kadesh GPN because we’re giving away 15 free entries in the best ball mania to of course your chance to win $1 million. And it’s free. You get free entry fees, a promo code as GPN. And if you were looking for some extra entries, hop in the live stream, it’ll be on our YouTube and we’ll be giving away 15 throughout the course of the, of the draft. I know we’ve have some totals out for your, what do we got the number of a LaCroix consumed throne breaks 112

Speaker 2 (29m 47s): And a half LaCroix consumed over under nine and a half bathroom breaks over under 20 and a half teams drafted. And by the way, shout out to Terrelle. Cause he broke all this stuff

Speaker 0 (29m 56s): Down. It’s a great article over it. As a brew

Speaker 2 (29m 59s): Bosely, as you can possibly break down how many times I’m going to go pee. He has data. He went back

Speaker 0 (30m 6s): And checked the film on some of these prop bets. It was pretty hilarious. But any of these, a as a player, prop guy, any, any leans on a Kramer’s a player props for drafted tomorrow. Yeah. Give

Speaker 4 (30m 17s): Me the over on that 20 and a half teams drafted. I go conservative. I think we’ll to get up to maybe like 25, I think I’ll do it. Yeah. They want me to go up to like 25 beds

Speaker 0 (30m 26s): And little nugget here. I think that is the lock. As far as these Kramer player props little nugget here too, is if it’s taking a while for the full traps to fill, because there has to be other, other lunatics drafting it 2:00 AM west coast, time, 5:00 AM on the east. Kramer may also w we have discussed, you are able to draft three man teams. I can do whatever the fuck I want. You can probably rattle through a few three man teams, which will count towards your overall teams drafted and players drafted.

So

Speaker 2 (31m 0s): There’s also a decent chance that I have other random slow drafts come up that we can talk about. Cause I I’ve gotten so excited about drafting and I have like seven slow drafts going concurrently right now, along with these, tomorrow’s going to be intense. And I think what’s going to be funny is if my opinions are like the guys that I’m ahead of market on right now. Yeah. If I’m right at this time and I have a, I have a spike where I draft 25 teams. God damn. I’m going to have a chance at this million.

Speaker 0 (31m 29s): Oh yeah. All right. That’ll be a fun. And thank you for participating in the sports Galen podcast. Make sure you check out Munaf Manji on the sports gambling podcast, NBA gambling podcasts on the sports gambling podcast network. The MLB gambling podcast puts out a ton of written content and you can follow them on Twitter as well at sports nerd 8 2 4. Munaf thanks for calling in man. Thanks for having me guys. All right. For the sports gaming podcasts, I’m showing a second, the money green and he is Ryan.

Oh man.

Speaker 2 (32m 2s): See you in a couple of days, Kramer.