Video of disabled UP man’s perilous quest to vote grabs the attention of county, city
Blake Geyen’s video cuts to the chase in just 1 minute and 38 seconds.
Since it was posted online just over a week ago, it’s been viewed nearly 13,000 times.
Recorded by his mom, the video captures Geyen — a 28-year-old from University Place with cerebral palsy who uses a motorized wheelchair to get around — voting in person at the Pierce County elections center.
It’s not easy for him.
Because of that, it’s a difficult — but important — video to watch.
Geyen has a history advocating for transit-related disability rights issues, including serving on Pierce Transit’s Community Transportation Advisory Group.
The video shows him navigating the area directly surrounding the elections center, often in perilous fashion.
A lack of adequate sidewalks requires him to steer his motorized chair through traffic and a busy parking lot, at times putting him dangerously close to moving cars.
The accessible voting equipment at the elections center is available to Geyen and anyone else who wants or needs it during business hours for 18 days prior to each election.
The cruel trick is that the elections center, which is next door to the Pierce County Annex, is in an area not far from the Tacoma Costco that seems solely designed for motor vehicles.
It’s incredibly dangerous, as the video makes clear, but for Geyen the elections center serves a critical need.
Because of the privacy and freedom it offers, it’s where he chooses to participate in our democracy and fulfill his “civic duty,” as he puts it.
He doesn’t want to vote any other way and doesn’t believe he should have to.
“If I use a touch screen computer at the elections center to mark my ballot, I can look up candidates and initiatives on my own and select the choice that I want to vote for without any influence from another person,” Geyen says.
Geyen says he’s been voting in person at the Pierce County elections center since 2014 when he moved to the area from Thurston County.
Geyen recalls being “confused” the first time he attempted it when the sidewalk mysteriously ended in front of him.
It’s a pervasive problem, he says.
“I would have thought the area surrounding a public building where people with disabilities can exercise their right to vote would have accessible infrastructure,” Geyen says in the video with the aid of the electronic speech device he uses to communicate.
“I was very surprised at the lack of sidewalks and accessibility to the voting center,” he adds.
Speaking with officials from the City of Tacoma and Pierce County this week, surprise was just one of many reactions to Geyen’s video — which was widely circulated after being shared by Anna Zivarts, the program director of Rooted in Rights, an advocacy group that’s part of the broader Disability Rights Washington.
Zivarts has been in the news lately, largely in opposition to Initiative 976, including penning an op-ed about its effects on those with disabilities for the Seattle Times.
“I think voting is sort of the bedrock of our democracy,” Zivarts said this week when asked why voting access was an issue Rooted in Rights has taken up. “If people don’t have access to vote, private and securely, then what do we have?”
On Twitter, in response to Geyen’s video, Pierce County Auditor Julie Anderson quickly agreed that access was a problem at the election center, noting that she’d encouraged Geyen to make and share it.
Anderson added that improving the situation had “been on local government’s ‘to-do’ list for far too long.”
In a follow-up interview with The News Tribune, Anderson cited a 2010 voting accessibility report from Disability Rights Washington, for instance, which highlighted many of the same access issues.
Anderson said fully addressing the problems revealed in Geyen’s video would require a partnership between the city, which oversees the sidewalks, the county, which controls the elections center, and Pierce Transit.
Anderson said Pierce County’s elections center will move to a larger, more accessible location for the 2020 presidential election in preparation for an influx of voters requiring in-person assistance. She described that as a one-time fix, though, that doesn’t negate the need for a solution at the Election Center’s current location.
It needs to get done, Anderson said, describing Geyen’s video as an example of “how difficult we’re making it for people to be independent.”
“I was pleased to have a powerful testimony to add to the record,” Anderson said of the video. “This is a problem that the election center has been shining a light on for many years.”
Tacoma City Councilman Ryan Mello, meanwhile, also chimed in online, saying that the city’s public works department is aware of the problem and working on a solution.
On Friday, Tacoma Public Works director Kurtis Kingsolver confirmed as much.
Kingsolver said officials from the city and county met several months ago to start discussing a plan for the area.
From the city’s perspective, Kingsolver said, an estimate of what it would cost to address the sidewalks, ramps and crosswalks in the area came to roughly $300,000.
While no funds have been identified for the work, Kingsolver described it as “a good project,” and one he’ll request money for in next year’s budget.
Speaking to The News Tribune Friday morning, Pierce County Councilmember Connie Ladenburg, whose district includes the elections center, likely expressed the views of many who have recently seen Geyen’s video.
Ladenburg said she simply wasn’t aware of the problem’s severity, describing it as eye-opening.
While acknowledging that government can move slowly, Ladenburg is “optimistic” the city and county can come together and solve the problem quickly.
“First of all, accessibility is paramount to our election system. … If we’re doing something that is inhibiting a person’s ability to vote, then we’ve got to get it fixed,” Ladenburg said.
Ladenburg also validated the reason Geyen made the video in the first place.
“Until it’s brought to our attention, sometimes we just don’t see these things,” Ladenburg said.
“I feel bad that we haven’t noticed, or that I haven’t noticed,” Ladenburg added. “I guess I just want to get it fixed.”
Luckily, that’s Geyen’s goal, too.
It also happens to be what he, and others, deserve.
