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Going by your quoted text from Harlan Lane and Ben Bahan, by ASL users they do not necessarily mean just deaf people. The wording could mean that hearing people who use ASL, such as CODAs, interpreters, teachers, etc., are included in that figure. Bit optimistic, but whatever.
So, yeah, liberals like to take jabs at the conservatives, and vice versa. It gets a bit tiring - no wonder there are more and more independents these days. That's my thinking anyway.
Your figures sound close to 1 million, and in voter pull that is a considerable number. Less than that threw the last election for president.
Not to be forgotten are the loyal friends, families, teachers and other professionals, and just plain interested people. That could easily push the numbe of this potential bloc to over 2 million or more.
This is the type of study I have been looking for! Thank you for bringing this to light. And for your hard work on the study!
Dianrez, my study pertains to Deaf people. The Deaf voters vlog was talking about Deaf voters and not all Deaf people. Plus, the number of Deaf voters would be much less than the million you are saying. It'd be more like 700,000 of those who are of voting age (18 years and up).
Deaf population? deaf voters?
Lane et. al. were right. Sign language community. ASL community. Those people who sign in ASL, within a giant continuum from native-like to English-like. The number might be higher than 2M when considering comrades of the Deaf, parents, terps, codas, and ASL students all over.
Ponder on, kokonut pundit . . .
Vblogs caused this wonderful discourse now available for the dDeaf. Your blogs are important. Continue on.
Again, cnkatz, the subject was about Deaf voters being 2 million strong. Not terps who are hearing, friends who are hearing that know sign language, CODA, ASL students...etc.
The vlog clip was directly aimed at potential Deaf voters who are or will be of voting age (18 years old and up) by 2008 election time. I made it distinctly clear on the differences between Deaf voters and the Deaf population which is much bigger anyway. And taking into the voting age requirement the number of Deaf voters goes down to around 700,000.
Either you didn't understand or missed completely what went on. Lauren Ridloff explicitly said in her video that there were anywhere from 500,000 to 2 million people who use ASL as their first language. It was already obvious that she meant Deaf people. Or in this case Deaf voters. She incorrectly used the number that came from Bahan and Lane which talks about all ASL users (CODAs, Terps, friends who sign, Deaf people, etc) and nothing about the 500,000 to 2 million *Deaf voters.* Note the discrepancy here. And note the voting age as well. There are no 2 million Deaf voters to begin with.
Interesting...I didn't realize we're such a small group!
FWIW, I was referring to the quoted number from Harlan Lane and Ben Bahan, not Lauren Ridloff's numbers. She probably got them from the earlier number. Pretty natural to take the larger figure from a range of numbers when one is passionate about a topic. I am sure you can see why one would be tempted either way.
I understand which is why I did the blog so readers know it isn't 2 million strong *Deaf* voters.
why count out of action the hard of hearing from having a say in the voting process? You are substracting an order of magnitude of voters.
HoH share with deaf core communications issues.
10% represents deaf/hoh. That means 28 million people, 2/3 of which are voting age, or 20 million.
They're talking about culturally deaf people or Deaf people with the capital "D" buy claiming that there are 2 million Deaf voters. They claim includes only those who know and use ASL to communicate. Not about the other deaf and hard of hearing people who don't sign ASL to communicate or are culturally Deaf.
Please read carefully next time.
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