The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) defines someone with a disability as a “person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment.” This inclusive definition captures the diversity of disability communities, which encompass those with mobility issues, people who are visually impaired or hearing impaired, and those with mental or cognitive difficulties. Since voters with disabilities experience different challenges and may require different voting accommodations, there are no “one size fits all” solutions. This explainer will attempt to outline the extent of these concerns by providing a brief overview of the academic research that has been done related to voter accessibility in the United States.
This explainer was last updated on June 20, 2024.
Voter Registration and Turnout
Disability-related voting challenges are by no means rare. The United States Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) estimated that 38.3 million eligible voters in 2020 had a disability (nearly 1/6 of the electorate). The true number of voters with disabilities is likely higher since these projections are derived from self-reported statistics, and many people who live with mobility, cognitive, or sensory issues may not identify as having a disability. Additionally, an estimated 67.6 million eligible voters in 2020 either had a disability or shared a household with someone who had a disability, representing over one-fourth of the electorate. The second segment of this population is notable because having caretaking responsibilities for someone with a disability may lead to additional obstacles to voter registration and turnout. Figure 1 shows that both the number of eligible voters with a disability and those sharing a household with someone with a disability has increased over the past four general election cycles.
Image: A double bar graph showing the number of eligible voters with a disability (in purple) and the number of eligible voters in a household where someone has a disability (in orange), from 2008-2020. The x-axis is the year and the y-axis is the number of eligible voters.
Furthermore, the ACS reported that an additional 53.1 million senior citizens aged 65 or older were eligible to vote in 2020, and 48.6% of those over 75 were identified as having a disability. Even though older voters tend to have higher rates of voter turnout than younger voters, the ability to vote can be hampered by the disabling conditions many seniors face as they age. From 2008 to 2022, older citizens with disabilities were less likely to vote than people without disabilities by between 10 and 11.7 percentage points in presidential election years. Unsurprisingly, the estimated turnout gap between those with and without disabilities tends to widen when controlling for other factors such as socioeconomic status and lower levels of education.
The gap in voter registration rates among those with disabilities and those without are notably smaller than turnout, with a 2.9-point gap in 2020 and a 0.5-point gap in 2022, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC). The difference between registration and turnout statistics is an indication that the driving force behind lower turnout among those with disabilities is not necessarily due to low rates of registration.
Voting-Related Difficulties
Nation-wide post-election surveys have captured substantial voting challenges among those with disabilities over the last decade. In 2012, the EAC found that 26% of voters with disabilities faced voting challenges. This dropped by over half in 2020 (when only 11% of voters with disabilities reported difficulties), though the figure increased slightly in 2022 to 14%. The drop between 2012 and 2020 has been attributed to improvements in polling place accessibility, coupled with the large shift to voting by mail during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. People without disabilities each year reported significantly fewer voting-related challenges (7, 6, and 4 percent less for each year, respectively). Though the accessibility improvements in the 2020 election are notable, a 2022 survey based on an analysis of data reported by the EAC found that 4.9% of eligible voters with disabilities said they tried and failed to vote in that year’s general election, in contrast to 2.9% of those without disabilities. While a 2-point difference may seem small initially, it represents almost half a million people with disabilities.
Having a disability and navigating its related challenges are among the most common reasons eligible voters report not having voted. A study conducted by Rutgers University in collaboration with the EAC determined that the second most common reason why all people surveyed in 2020 didn't register to vote was “permanent illness or disability.” This information mirrors an analysis of the 2020 Survey of the Performance of American Elections (SPAE), which found that 2.8% of registered voters with disabilities said they did not vote either because “I tried to vote, but it ended up being too much trouble,” “I tried to vote, but was not allowed to when I tried,” or “the line at the polls was too long,” compared to 1.0% of registered voters without disabilities.
Image: A line graph showing the percent of voters who gave illness or disability as a reason for not voting in the Current Population Survey for years 2000-2022. All voters are represented by the blue line and voters over the age of 65 are represented by the red line. The x-axis is the year and the y-axis is the percentage.
Voting in Person
In-person voting presents a unique set of challenges for voters with disabilities. Federal laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (1990), the Voting Rights Act (1965), and the Help America Vote Act (2002) require all polling places to accommodate voters with a range of disabilities. These accommodations include having polling places be wheelchair-accessible, ensuring poll workers are adequately trained to meet the needs of voters with disabilities, and supplying alternative ballots (such as those in large-print or braille). Despite these protections, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that 83% of polling places in 2016 featured one or more potential barriers to voters with disabilities. While most offered at least one accessible ballot marking device or booth, over one-third of the polling locations lacked a location for voters with disabilities to mark their ballots privately.
More recent reporting has affirmed that these in-person difficulties have persisted, and one contributing factor may be the lack of transportation available to voters with disabilities (which has also been shown to reduce turnout among the electorate in general). The 2017 National Household Travel Survey reported that 25.5 million adults have travel-limiting disabilities, 11.2 million of whom are age 65 or older. This challenge is especially notable in West Virginia, the state with the highest percentage of people with disabilities. Unsurprisingly, it has one of the lowest levels of voter participation among people with disabilities, and limited transportation options in its most rural and mountainous areas are a likely cause.
Voting by Mail
In both 2020 and 2022, people with disabilities voted by mail at a rate about 10 percentage points higher than those without disabilities. While mail voting mitigates many of the obstacles encountered during the in-person voting process, voters with disabilities are still more likely to experience difficulties than voters without disabilities. According to the EAC, 6.1% of voters with disabilities experienced difficulties reading, receiving, returning, or understanding their mail ballot compared to just 0.3% of those without disabilities in 2022. Those with cognitive or vision impairments experienced the most difficulty.
Increased access to voting by mail is correlated with higher turnout rates among voters with disabilities, particularly in states with no-excuse systems and permanent absentee ballots. States with wider access to mail voting between 2018 and 2022 experienced greater participation amongst voters with disabilities in 2022, while turnout did not change significantly in other states. Unsurprisingly, a call for increased access to vote by mail has been a top priority for many voter accessibility advocates.
Conclusion
As much of the literature suggests, Americans with disabilities experience particular barriers to voting compared to those without disabilities. These challenges occur at all stages of the process, both at home and in the voting booth. While the saliency of these issues differs by jurisdiction and voters with different impairments encounter diverse challenges, it is clear that this share of the electorate is steadily growing. Continued research on and mitigation of potential barriers will be important to ensure voters with disabilities are able to exercise their political voices and enjoy equal access to the polls.
Suggested Reading and Resources
American Civil Liberties Union. “Voting With a Disability: Breaking Down Barriers to the Ballot”
Schur, Lisa, et al. 2023. “Ensuring Voting Access Across the Electorate: Best Practices and New Areas for Research” [White Paper]
United States Election Assistance Commission. “Best Practices: Accessible Voter Registration.”
U.S. Vote Foundation. “Ensuring Accessible Voting for People with Disabilities.”
Wisconsin Elections Commission: Barriers Faced by Elderly Voters and Voters with Disabilities