One million deaf Americans' votes up for grabs - but often ignored

But experts say many of the approximately one million deaf and hard-of-hearing American Sign Language (ASL) users in the United States may not be participating in politics at all, due to the inaccessibility of campaigns.

In a country where the last two presidential races were decided by only tens of thousands of votes, the group represents a potentially significant but untapped voting bloc.

"The most important thing is for deaf people to feel like members, not visitors, in (this) country," said Brendan Stern, a political science professor at Gallaudet University in Washington, the world's only liberal arts university for deaf students.

Deaf people need to "feel like citizens," he told AFP through an interpreter. "And for that to happen, (we) need not only access, but meaningful engagement across differences."

Presidential campaigns that receive federal funding are legally required to caption their ads, but captions can be glitchy or inaccurate, and most candidates don't hire interpreters for live events.

And captions do not always provide sufficient access. ASL is its own language separate from English, with its own grammar, word order and idioms.

When deciding who to support, deaf voters may be interested in candidates' stances on issues related to their disability, such as funding for specialist schools, but they are focused on the same issues other Americans care about too.

'I'd rather understand it myself'

Danielle Previ, a 35-year-old clinical psychologist who is deaf, said she is most concerned with politicians' views on women's rights, but that events such as candidate debates can be hard to follow.

With captions "I feel like I'm missing information, because it's going so fast, the back-and-forth," Previ told AFP.

"I just don't like the idea of... asking my (hearing) partner, 'What's up? Fill me in,'" she added. "I'm very independent. I'd rather understand it myself."

Deaf journalist Alex Abenchuchan from Michigan wanted to bridge that information gap, and began presenting a news show in ASL called "The Daily Moth" on YouTube in 2015.

"There are some deaf individuals that are very conservative and some deaf individuals that are very liberal," Abenchuchan said of his viewers. "It's a huge range."

Those preferences can be expressed in the sign names chosen to refer to politicians: the sign for Biden's aviators is most often deployed by fans of the president, and the hair sign for Trump is most often used by his detractors.

During Barack Obama's presidency, many deaf Republicans talked about the Democrat using the handshape for the letter "O" and the motion for "liar."

One name sign for Kamala Harris -- a movement that looks both like the letter “K” and the lotus flower -- was coined by a group of Black and South Asian deaf women as a way to honor the vice president's heritage.

In an effort to be neutral, Abenchuchan said he usually just fingerspells politicians' names.

According to political science professor Stern, there is almost no official research on the partisan leanings of the US deaf population.

It's not even clear at what rate deaf Americans vote, he said, citing research showing that disabled people overall tend to engage less with the political system than the general population.

But "studies have been inconclusive, at best, in measuring the voting turnout and behavior of deaf people," he added.

Register deaf voters

To foster more political engagement on the Gallaudet campus, Stern -- the only deaf political science PhD in the country -- coaches a student debate team and runs programs aimed at registering deaf Americans to vote.

Gallaudet student ZaniBelle Hoglind, 20, said she has voted in elections in her home state of Colorado, but doesn't follow politics closely.

"Maybe I would like to be involved in politics more, for sure," she said. "But I just think there’s just not a lot of accessibility."

"There needs to be a good, clear, certified interpreter," Hoglind added.

Although offering captions alone is considered legally satisfactory, the Biden administration is the first to employ full-time ASL interpreters.

Third-generation deaf signer Elsie Stecker, who presents White House briefings and presidential speeches in sign language, told AFP she seeks to "embody what the speaker is trying to do," both with a message's content and its tone.

Stecker said she is "deeply honored" to serve in a role that she believes shows deaf Americans that their government "values the deaf community, they see the deaf community."