# FYI for Dopers who may need mobility assistance at the polls

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fyi-for-dopers-who-may-need-mobility-assistance-at-the-polls/924075>\
**Category:** Politics & Elections\
**Created:** [October 27, 2020, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fyi-for-dopers-who-may-need-mobility-assistance-at-the-polls/924075 "2020-10-27T23:19:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fyi-for-dopers-who-may-need-mobility-assistance-at-the-polls/924075/1 "2020-10-27T23:19:37Z")

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If you vote in person and don’t think you can stand in line the whole time, and don’t bring a chair with you, before you go, call the place and find out what their policy is about wheelchairs and other devices and if they have them available and where you can go to borrow one.

I’m saying this because I was volunteering at the library, and a man limped in and asked me if he could get a wheelchair. I asked the librarian if I could run back to the storage room and borrow one, and she told me, “No, he has to come to the desk and request it himself, and sign a waiver and do an orientation.” He wasn’t very happy about having to walk the extra distance, but he knew he would have to do it in order to cast his ballot, and he did get the wheelchair and it looks like the other voters let him go ahead in line.

He told me that he had a prosthetic leg and had just had a toe amputated at the doctor’s office. What a trouper!

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**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fyi-for-dopers-who-may-need-mobility-assistance-at-the-polls/924075/2 "2020-10-27T23:27:12Z")

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> [@nearwildheaven](#):
>
> “No, he has to come to the desk and request it himself, and sign a waiver and do an orientation.”

I’m assuming that’s their normal protocol all the time, but WTH? How much damage can you really do to a wheelchair rolling it around a hospital? And an orientation? They’re not terribly difficult to use.

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**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\
**Post date:** [October 27, 2020, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fyi-for-dopers-who-may-need-mobility-assistance-at-the-polls/924075/3 "2020-10-27T23:27:59Z")

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I was at the library, not the hospital.

They’d had problems with kids goofing off with them, so that’s probably why he had to do all that.

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**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\
**Post date:** [October 28, 2020, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fyi-for-dopers-who-may-need-mobility-assistance-at-the-polls/924075/4 "2020-10-28T12:32:40Z")

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> [@nearwildheaven](#):
>
> He told me that he had a prosthetic leg and had just had a toe amputated at the doctor’s office.

😕