Some technical glitches affected the Web site the federal government was using to collect comments on disability research. So, the public participation portion of the comment period has been extended, but only until May 15.
(I wrote about this previously here.)
The public-comment period was separated into two parts. During the first part, which is now over, various “stakeholders” were asked to submit research priorities. The second half, which is the part that has been extended, allows people to read through all the submissions and “vote up” the ones they consider to be the most important.
I received an e-mail reminder today from the agency handling this, the Interagency Committee on Disability Research:
As we indicated previously, the voting was suspended on April 23 to modify the database application due to the overwhelming number of recommendations. If you voted previously, it will be necessary to recast your votes during the new one-week timeframe: May 8-15, 2009. We apologize for this inconvenience and encourage you to return to the site to vote for your research priorities.
It sounds like any votes submitted previously were lost, so be sure to resubmit them and let the agency know what you think should be a priority.