City and feds make deal on polling place accessibility
Friday, April 17th, 2009
By: Tom MacDonald
tmacdonald@whyy.org
The Justice Department and the city of Philadelphia have struck an agreement to making polling places more accessible to the disabled. The issue of accessibility has been a problem for years in the city.
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The agreement calls for the city to spend up to a half million dollars for an expert to review disabled accessibility of over 1,100 buildings with polling places in the city.
Robert Lee is the Administrator of Voting Registration of the Philadelphia City Commissioners. He says the city has been steadily improving access for the disabled over the past three years.
Lee: In 2006 we had 596 of what we considered inaccessible buildings. Through recommendations we were able to relocate places, put temporary ramps out, use alternative entrances and we felt we had that knocked down to about 225.
Lee adds the city is also spending money to provide access to over a dozen recreation centers that are also being used as polling places.