REV UP Vermont

05/17/2026

Disability P⏻wer on the Hill was a huge success! Close to 70 advocates from across the country spoke to their members of Congress about issues including special education, social security asset limits, home- and community-based services, and more. It’s time to keep the momentum going and keep demonstrating the power of the disability community!

ID: A large group of people of various races, genders, and disabilities pose in front of the US Capitol building.

05/09/2026

🚨 ACTION ALERT: Protect Voting Rights!

We have a critical window this weekend to influence S.298 and push for the version Vermonters deserve.

Sample scripts in comments.

The Goal:
We need the Senate Government Operations Committee to send S.298 to a Conference Committee. This is the only way we can reinstate the Private Right of Action—a vital tool for ensuring our laws are actually enforceable.

How to help:
Reach out to Senate Gov Ops Chair Brian Collamore (https://legislature.vermont.gov/people/single/2026/24031) and Senate Judiciary Chair Nader Hashim (https://legislature.vermont.gov/people/single/2024/37407) before they head back to the State House on Monday.

The Ask:
- Move S.298 to a Conference Committee.
- Reinstate the Private Right of Action so the bill has real teeth.

If it doesn’t go to committee, the bill likely stays as-is. Let’s make sure it’s done right!

05/09/2026

Watching the premiere of Suffs on PBS tonight and struck by a profound sense of gratitude for the relentless visionaries who came before us. Their struggle for the ballot was a grueling, systemic battle for basic personhood.

The echoes of the suffragists’ fight are vibrantly alive in our modern push for disability rights in Vermont, specifically our ongoing work for full, accessible participation in municipal elections. These lyrics capture the uncompromising urgency of this movement:

"We demand to be heard / We demand to be seen / We demand equality and nothing in between."

The production also highlights the painful struggle for intersectionality. Black suffragist leaders like Ida B. Wells and Mary Church Terrell had to fight a dual battle: dismantling a patriarchal society while confronting racism within a movement where white leaders often prioritized their own progress.

And yet, they persisted, lifting as they climbed.

Lesson Learned: Advocacy is often sparked by personal injustice, but it gains real power through collective identity. Solidarity transforms a special interest into a public mandate.

RevUP Vermont is deeply thankful for the support of the League of Women Voters of Vermont in our modern fight for voting equity. They recognize that democracy remains incomplete until every barrier—physical or systemic—is dismantled.

05/05/2026

Hi everyone, Maria here from Rev UP Vermont's leadership team.

When we started Rev UP Vermont this year, I asked myself: How do we bring more attention to the detrimental floor votes happening in our state?

As the director of Vermont's Freedom & Unity Chorus, I knew music was the answer. I found a moving song called "Bound for Freedom," but it needed new verses to speak to the issues of our time, including ICE, endless war, and our own Town Meeting Day.

When I told our audience at the recent premiere of this song that Vermont ranks 49th in the nation for disability voting access, there was an audible gasp in the room. People are waking up.

Our new verse says it all:

From the mud of the farmyard, to the floor of the Town Hall,
If you have to vote in person, then it's broken for us all.
For the worker and the mother, for the disabled and the poor,
Let the ballot reach the people who can't make it through the door.

I’m sharing the introduction and performance here for you all to enjoy. We plan to share this story everywhere we sing. I hope it brings you comfort to know the message is getting out there.

05/01/2026

Big News: S.298 Passes the House! 🎉

The Vermont Voting Rights Act officially passed the House yesterday with the disability language intact!

What’s next?
It moves back to the Senate. They can either accept the House amendments immediately or send it to Senate Gov Ops for further review.

Watch the House Floor Presentation:
📽️ Timestamp 1:02:24:

House Session - 2026-04-29 - 1:10PM

04/30/2026

On April 24th in the House GovOps committee, testimony was shared by six disabled people with lived experience of being denied the right to vote in Vermont. (Link to the written testimony and video is in the comments below, along with supporting statements from statewide and national disability groups.)

The Vermont Voting Rights Act bill was almost passed out of committee without disabled people being included in the definition of protected class! The committee almost passed the bill without taking any testimony from the people actually affected.

Though we are grateful that S.298 includes disabled people for the moment as of late last week, it is clear that our Secretary of State's office will be advocating that the bill remove disabled people in these final few weeks of session. (Their office previously would not support the senate version including disabled people, and also had them take out individual right to action, which means that when rights are violated, disabled people have the right to sue their towns.)

Please watch the video in the comments. In it:

- The director of elections fails to correct a legislator when they claim that disabled people should be responsible for providing their own accommodations so that clerks and towns are not burdened.

- He suggests that Vermont's turnout gap between disabled and non-disabled voters is on par with the national average. The truth is the turnout gap in Vermont is 14.2%, whereas the national average is 1.5%. After hearing that voter turnout for disabled people is dead last in the nation in Vermont (and near dead last for people of color, especially Black Vermonters), he says it's fine and nothing to be concerned about...that it's only because turnout for white non-disabled people is so good.

- He claims that the SOS is working with ACLU, DRVT, and Legal Disability Law Project closely on efforts to protect disabled people (we have several dissent letters from those orgs shared below about their take on voting rights of disabled people which is not the same as the Secretary of State's policy guidance to towns)

- He suggests that disabled voters should not be included as a protected class in the Vermont Voting Rights Act for our own good, to protect us, and "there's always next year".

We have just a few final days left in this session to make sure disabled people don't get left behind. Again.

Please join us in calling for accountability from our elected officials.

Our votes and ability to engage in democracy matters!

04/30/2026

Join the REV UP Vermont coalition and be part of the movement for accessible democracy!

Vermont currently ranks 49th in the nation for disability access to voting. It’s time to change the system so that every Vermonter—regardless of disability status—has a seat at the table.

Join our membership meetings:

📅 When: Second Thursday of the Month
🕕 Time: 6:00 PM
📍 Where: Online via Zoom

Come help us build the power of the disability vote Vermont. All are welcome!

🔗 Register here to attend: https://tinyurl.com/REVUPVermont

04/26/2026

There’s a common misconception that being nonpartisan means staying silent or neutral about the actions and policies of elected officials. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

The League of Women Voters is, and has always been, a nonpartisan grassroots organization committed to securing voting rights and building a more inclusive democracy. Supporting an inclusive democracy is not — and has never been — a neutral position.

So what does “nonpartisan” actually mean?
It means we are independent of political parties. We never support or oppose candidates or parties. Instead, we study issues, adopt positions that promote good governance, and advocate for policies that strengthen democracy.

Our mission requires us to speak out when any elected official, regardless of party, proposes policies that restrict voting rights, erode democratic norms, or hinder accountability and transparency.

Nonpartisan does not mean silent. It means principled, consistent, and committed to democracy.

04/05/2026

Just as in 1977, the fight for voting rights for people with disabilities cannot be won alone. Accessible polling places, universal mail-in ballots for all elections, and assistance for voters are not just "disability issues"—they are fundamental to a healthy democracy. We need allies to stand with us to ensure that every citizen, regardless of ability, can exercise their right to vote without barriers.

Solidarity isn't just a sentiment; it's an action. We invite you to join us as at our next meeting:

When: This Thursday, April 9th at 6PM

Where: tinyurl.com/revupvermont

03/27/2026

“We can’t burn the place down because we don’t like what they do in terms of accessibility with their local elections, but we can offer them best practices.” -Vermont SOS Sarah Copeland-Hanzas

So... about those "best practices"?

The Vermont Secretary of State's Office abruptly cancelled the remaining legislative workgroup meetings without warning and submitted their version of a best practice report to the legislature.

Please take a moment to read the entire dissension letter from Disability Rights Vermont linked below.

***
"Suddenly, DRVT had reason to believe the SOS’s office and
representatives did not enter this Act 133 process in good faith. If that was their position all along, and they had no intention of making recommendations for significant changes, they should have led with that, instead of wasting all our time and energy.

DRVT believed that this Act 133 working group was going to make robust, fully conceived recommendations for real change that would guarantee inclusiveness. DRVT believed that the result
of all of this effort would be that disabled people would no longer be having their Constitutional, and ADA rights violated, and that at a very minimum we would be ensuring that from now on, all
Vermonters with disabilities would be able to participate in meetings of local public bodies, annual municipal meetings, and local elections.

But we are concluding this process with weak
recommendations, vague best practices, and no assurances that Vermont will stop violating the rights of people with disabilities. This process fell far short to ensure universal access for all disenfranchised voters."