I take it you are also not a fan of "Handi-Capable?"
Never heard that one. It sounds stupid.
It's supported by insulated disabled people of the new generation, and those that tend to do a lot of activism and collective living. Person-first language, in general, is hit or miss. I hate it, but you'll see loads of people (usually those not directly impacted, if we're being honest) support it. Like how most autistic people are fine with being called autistic yet their parents will say they have a "child with autism."
But I'm biased on this subject, since I commonly refer to myself as a cripple or some other kind of derogatory term based on what I am. I'm definitely not the target audience for that kind of approach.
I have to say that I don't like the word "cripple." It has all kinds of negative connotations and has been used as insults and slurs for a very long time.
The last time I voted in a provincial election, I had to deal with two idiots who had no idea what set of paperwork to use for a disabled voter who turned up at the Returning Office and insisted on voting even before the advance polling date. At first they said no, nobody was allowed to vote. So I asked them what the polling station set up in the corner was for, then.
Then they tried to get cutesy with ID. I pulled out several things that were on the list of acceptable IDs. They asked if I planned to be away on voting day, and I said no.
I had to remind them that I'd spoken to both of them on the phone the previous day and had been told, "If you can get here, you can vote." Normally I'd be voting via in-home special ballot but funds hadn't been made available for that (so they claim; I wonder if I'd have gotten a different story if I'd spoken to the actual Chief Electoral Officer for the province).
So I said, "This is a day when I feel strong enough to be outside my home, and there's no guarantee I'll be well enough on voting day. You said if I got here I could vote, so I'm not leaving until I've voted."
Then came the discussion over what category of reason for letting me vote early. I wasn't going to be absent, so that wouldn't work. Finally they trotted out the Incapacitated Elector form and told me to sign it.
That's a process that allows someone who needs help to vote, to do so. If the voter wants a friend or spouse or other family member (has to be someone who is also eligible to vote at that same polling station) to read/mark the ballot for him/her, there's a process for that. It's not as involved as when I had to do it as a DRO - as the helper has to swear and sign an Oath of Friend of Incapacitated Elector - but there's still extra paperwork.
So they sighed dramatically at all the extra paperwork I was putting them through (I was the only other person in the office), got the paperwork, everything got signed, and they finally let me vote. It should have taken 5 minutes at most. It took closer to 20 minutes.
One advantage I have over some other disabled voters is that I've actually worked for Elections Canada and know what the procedures are supposed to be. If they're deviating or handing me a story, I call them on it (in a couple of cases I asked point-blank if they were attempting to deny me my right to vote; in one of those cases the worker in the Returning Office got fired as a result of her dishonesty and attempt to discriminate).
I really hope that some time this "Incapacitated Elector" term can be scrapped in favor of something that doesn't make us appear to be drunk or on drugs. It's not my mind that's the problem. It's other issues.
There's already a perfectly good word that doesn't imply that we somehow gain superpowers in exchange. It's "disabled."
![[pissed]](/images/smilies/pissed.gif "Pissed [pissed]")
