Disability & Voting Access
How physical, sensory, and cognitive disabilities create barriers to voting and what accommodations exist to ensure equal access.
Barriers to the Ballot
People with disabilities face multiple barriers to voting. Physical barriers include inaccessible polling stations (stairs, narrow doorways, no accessible parking). Sensory barriers include ballots that cannot be read by blind or low-vision voters and polling environments that are overwhelming for voters with autism or sensory processing disorders. Cognitive barriers affect voters with intellectual disabilities or dementia who may struggle with complex ballot designs.
An estimated 1 billion people worldwide live with some form of disability. In the US, about 38 million people with disabilities are eligible to vote. A 2020 survey by Rutgers University found that voters with disabilities were about 27 percent more likely to report difficulty voting than those without disabilities. This gap represents a significant failure of equal access, and because turnout among people with disabilities has historically lagged, it also translates into diminished political power for a very large constituency.
