PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Voters in one Germantown community say they’ve been struggling to cast their votes at their polling place, due to a lack of accessible entrances.
Francina Tally is 73 years old and uses a walker, like many other voters who come to the Happy Hollow Playground and Recreation Center polling location on 48th Street and Wayne Avenue, in Germantown’s Fernhill neighborhood. The center is currently under construction with a short walkway leading to an uneven gravel path, making access for the disabled and elderly difficult.
“It’s a very far distance, especially for our seniors,” said Tally. “Everyone is getting through but it’s very difficult. I think it’s unsafe.”
Jerome, who lives around the corner, said it was hard to watch his disabled neighbors stumbling through the construction site.
“Elderly people [are] struggling to get to the voting poll,” he observed. “You know there’s gravel and they’re going through the grass and it’s ridiculous.”
Deneen Brockington, who also votes at Happy Hollow, said neighbors requested a change of venue. “We kept getting told no, they’d make it work. They were going to come here and fix it,” she said. “It doesn’t look like a fix.”
Ray Willis, judge of elections in Ward 12-21, agreed it wasn’t much of a fix. “They laid out some blacktop on crevasses. That’s it,” he told KYW Newsradio.
“This is an old neighborhood, so you have old voters — or I should say … mature voters,” he continued, “but from a safety standpoint, this is not a safe area for them to travel … and it’s extremely warm out right now.
The high temperatures shed light on another problem. According to Stephanie Graham, one of the neighbors asking for a different polling place, the building has no air conditioning and only one fan.
“I’ve been trying since April 30 to get a polling place that was safe and accessible,” she said, “and I even found a place last Thursday and they did nothing.”
KYW Newsradio reached out to the Office of the City Commissioners. Its response was that the polling place “conforms to city requirements for ADA accessibility,” but as a public space with no air conditioning, they would “continue to monitor the site throughout the day.” However, they added it would remain open.
