LANSING — Michigan residents with disabilities are at high risk for the coronavirus due to their reliance on others for assistance. But they say they are being ignored or discriminated against in emergency government policies enacted to address the pandemic.

In recent days:

A coalition of disability rights groups wrote to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessel, saying current policies will leave Michigan residents who have disabilities without access to ventilators or other life-sustaining medical treatment, if medical rationing becomes necessary during the pandemic.

Blind residents sued Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on Saturday, saying that as the state encourages vote by mail for upcoming elections, it is failing to provide blind people with ballots they can read and mark with their preferred candidates, thereby violating the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The Friday letter to Whitmer and Nessel — signed by Michigan Protection & Advocacy Services, Inc. and 18 other groups and individuals who advocate for people with disabilities — said that current policies adopted by the state would discriminate against residents with "a severe underlying disease" in the event that rationing of access to ventilators was enacted in overloaded hospitals.

For example, someone who routinely required oxygen prior to contracting COVID-19 would be given lower priority under the policy adopted by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, the letter said.

“No life is more precious than another. All people in Michigan are worth saving,” attorney Kyle Williams of Michigan Protection & Advocacy Services, Inc. said in an email to state officials, accompanying the letter.

Kelly Rossman-McKinney, a spokeswoman for Nessel, said her office is "carefully reviewing the letter from several Michigan disability rights advocates as it raises a number of issues and policy questions." She declined comment on the lawsuit against Benson.

Benson has not yet been served with the lawsuit, and has no comment, said spokesman Jake Rollow.

Tiffany Brown, a spokeswoman for Whitmer, said the letter is under review and the governor expects to issue an executive order this week that will address many of the groups' concerns. Whitmer welcomes the input and is "committed to protecting the civil rights of all Michiganders throughout this crisis," Brown said.

"Even if we have reached the apex of hospital admissions and new cases, the states response and action is urgently needed to save the lives of people with disabilities going forward," said the letter to Whitmer and Nessel.

More:What shuttered schools mean for students with disabilities in Michigan

More:New voting machines a challenge for Michigan's blind voters

"As we all know, the models are based on incomplete testing and the down-slope of the curve will likely have just as many deaths at the up-slope."

In an earlier letter to Whitmer, Detroit Disability Power Executive Director Dessa Cosma said that Michigan's estimated 1.4 million people with disabilities "are at greater risk of contracting coronavirus because of physical barriers to accessing hygiene, the need

to touch things, challenges to accessing information, and difficulty enacting social distancing (due to the need for assistance with daily living needs)."

Cosma also said that people with disabilities are more likely to be discriminated against when trying to access health care.

The Friday letter said state officials should be tracking how COVID-19 is impacting people with disabilities, but that does not appear to be happening.

"Disability is a key social characteristic that cuts across race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, and religious affiliation, but it does not appear to be tracked by the state as part of the COVID-19 response," the letter said. "It should be.

"Hospitals record comorbiditiies and preexisting conditions, and if we track disability, we can explore correlations across social characteristics, as well as solutions.

A lawsuit filed Saturday in federal court in Detroit alleges Michigan residents who are blind face discrimination with respect to absentee voting, and that the effects of that discrimination are aggravated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Blind residents Michael Powell of Warren and Fred Wurtzel of Lansing Township, who are both associated with the Michigan affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind, filed the lawsuit against Benson and state Elections Director Jonathan Brater.

Available technology would allow blind residents to read and fill out absentee ballots with privacy and without the need for assistance, but Michigan has not adopted that technology, though other states, such as Maryland, have done so, the lawsuit alleges.

"The need for immediate implementation of accessible absentee ballots ... has never been more urgent in light of the global pandemic, which is expected to result in most, if not all, voters in Michigan voting by absentee ballots in upcoming elections," in May, August, and November, the suit alleges.

The suit seeks an injunction requiring Benson to adopt "a private and independent method of absentee voting" prior to the May 5 primary election.

Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @paulegan4. Read more on Michigan politics and sign up for our elections newsletter.