Disabled voters face Election Day challenges
By Parija Kavilanz @CNNMoney
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) - On Nov. 6, there's a very real possibility that many Americans with disabilities will not be able to vote because their local polling places will be inaccessible.
Advocates for the disabled are worried that local governments aren't doing enough to prepare - as are some of the small businesses that outfit polling sites with ramps.
"We've gotten quite a few inquiries from major municipalities, but they're not following through to actual sales," said Dave Henderson, sales manager at EZ-Access in Algona, Wash.
The family-owned business makes portable wheelchair ramps. Prices range from $500 for a four-foot ramp with handrails to as much as $4,000 for a 30-foot modular model.
In 2008, as many as 1,000 polling centers were retrofitted with the company's ramps, Henderson said. "For us, the election can be a big revenue generator."
This year, Henderson says he has gotten about 600 to 800 orders, and he's uncertain how the next few weeks will go.
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Manufacturing: Not just a man's job
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) - April Senase is at the front end of a potential job boom: women in manufacturing.
Senase, 35, is a trailblazer. She has worked numerous factory jobs for 13 years - often as the first, or only, woman on the production floor. She makes nearly $40 an hour, with overtime, in her day job running high-tech machinery at a factory that makes specialized industrial parts.
And in March, she took a second job as the first female instructor in computer-aided machining at Symbol Job Training Inc., a trade school that sits in the heart of a busy manufacturing hub in Skokie, Ill.
In her new role, she hopes to inspire more women to follow her lead.
According to the National Association of Manufacturers, about a third of all manufacturing workers today are women.
But manufacturing is rapidly being transformed from a labor-intensive field to a high-tech one. The change, and a nascent pick up in domestic manufacturing, has created thousands of factory jobs nationwide that, experts say, more women are starting to seek out.
"Women are very detailed-oriented," said Senase. "You need that approach in manufacturing today because the work is so much more precise."
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