Access to Voting
by Tom Tuttle
Alameda Times-Star, 3.9.98
MICHELA ALIOTO remembers being discouraged by employees of San Francisco theaters from attending the latest blockbuster films because they were full and she was confined to a wheelchair.
“You learn to say ‘no’ to such efforts to restrict access to public facilities,” she says today. “You come to realize that things don’t come easily and you have to fight for them.”
When Alioto encountered such barriers as a teen-ager in the 1980s, the strong-willed paraplegic would sometimes gain admission “by claiming I had all these rights as an American, even though I didn’t.”
The Americans with Disabilities Act, which requires that public facilities be made accessible to the disabled, hadn’t been enacted then, and wouldn’t be for another decade. Even since the law was passed, it hasn’t always been followed.
As a UCLA student in 1990, Michela went to vote and found that being in a wheelchair made it impossible for her to use the voting booth. She called the registrar of voters and asked if there was another, accessible voting facility she could use.
“The woman said, ‘There is nothing I can do for you,’ recalls Michela.”
“I asked, ‘What should I do?’”
“She said, ‘Frankly, that’s not my problem. It’s your problem.’”
Last Friday, Michela Alioto, now 29, went to the courthouse in Napa County and filed papers making her a candidate for secretary of state, the chief election officer in California.
Her goal is to make voting “as simple as going to the market and buying a loaf of bread.”
“Even though ADA has been in effect most of this decade,” she says, “Not all voting places are accessible. I’m not so sure things have changed that much.”
Now one of the promising new faces in California politics, Alioto addresses a 7 p.m. Wednesday gathering of the Alameda Democratic Club. The meeting will be held in the Italian-American Hall, 2712 Encinal Ave., and is open to the public — “Even Republicans,” says Angie Watson, vice president of programs. Cheryl Hightower, a candidate for Alameda County superintendent of schools, also will speak.
Alioto is best remembered for seconding the nomination of her former boss, Vice President Al Gore, at the 1996 Democratic Convention. She is a member of the famous San Francisco family that produced one of the city’s most colorful mayors, Joseph L. Alioto; controversial city Supervisor Angela Alioto; and Michela’s father, Joseph M. Alioto, an anti-trust attorney who once sought to become governor.
Now a resident of St. Helena and part-owner of Amici Winery, Michela remains in touch with Gore. She first met him in the mid-1980s when her parents formed the American Paralysis Association. He showed an interest in the organization, now headed by actor Christopher Reeves, and Michela worked for his presidential campaign in 1988.
When the Clinton-Gore ticket was forged in 1992, she became its disability constituency coordinator.
She was part of the transition team after the election and joined the vice president’s domestic policy staff.
Michela returned to California and ran against Republican Congressman Frank Riggs in 1996, losing a close race.
Some observers thought she might seek that seat again since Riggs is running for the Senate, but instead she has chosen to try to unseat Republican Secretary of State Bill Jones.
She says it better serves her goal of opening doors and making California a better place.
“We have 19 million eligible voters,” she says. “Of those, we have 14 million who register to vote. Of the 14 million, 10 million actually vote. So only half the people eligible are voting. As the chief election officer for the state, I think the main goal is to increase voter participation.”
Disabled citizens aren’t the only Californians with restricted voting opportunities, says Alioto, singling out young people, the elderly, working mothers and mothers with newborns.
Possible turnout remedies
Motor voter registration, on-line registration and voting, and extension of permanent absentee ballot status to anyone who wants it, are possible remedies to falling voter turnout.
“As the computer and high-tech hub of the world, California should have pilot programs for online voting,” she says. “We should be using technology for voting. This is California for pete’s sake.”
She says voter fraud is the big issue for Jones, but focusing on it has come at the expense of voter participation.
“Obviously, we can’t have fraud,” Alioto says. “But when you have only 10 million of 20 million people voting, we should be encouraging people to vote, showing our young people they can be come part of the process.”
“In the past four years, voter registration has gone down 4 percent. That is a travesty when the main responsibility of your office is to make sure people vote. We need to be more pro-active and inclusive, not exclusionary.”
Says her age is an asset
She also says young Californians are underrepresented in government and that her age may be an asset rather than a liability.
Alioto was paralyzed in 1981 when a chair lift derailed at Heavenly Valley Ski Resort in South Lake Tahoe. She was 12 at the time. At age 17, she became the youngest person on President Reagan’s National Council on Disabilities Advisory Board. She also chaired a science and technology committee of the United States-Japan summit conferences on disabilities.
“Today I forget I have a disability,” she says. “The questions start coming up around campaign time.”
The oldest of four children, Michela says her parents taught them that we could do whatever we wanted to with our lives, but it is important to do something that gives back to the community.
One lesson Michela has learned from being disabled is “that society can close its doors on minorities. It is our responsibility to make sure it remains open.”
“Whatever avenues I have to take to do that, I’ll do,” she says. “Right now, it’s politics.”
Tags: Access, Access to Voting, Voting