This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 1, 2012 - According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 56 million Americans live with a disability, making up one of the largest minority groups in the United States. However, some argue that this group’s political voice is still a whisper, as the voter turnout for disabled Americans remains consistently lower than those without disabilities.
This week, the Missouri Disability Vote Project (MDVP) will host the St. Louis Disability Vote Summit as a way for disabled Missourians to learn about voting rights as well as how to navigate the polls on election day. The MDVP was established in 2001 by Paraquad, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering disabled citizens to gain greater independence. According to Amanda Beals, civic engagement organizer for Paraquad, the MDVP is made up of a number disability-focused organizations that work together to conduct nonpartisan Get Out the Vote campaigns.
A study by Rutgers University in 2009 found that in the 2008 presidential election, 57 percent of eligible disabled citizens voted, compared to 64 percent of non-disabled voters. The 2010 congressional elections saw a smaller gap – 43 percent compared to 46 percent. However, the smaller voting gap in 2010 is misleading, as it does not take into account the disproportionate drop in voting among younger voters that year, and younger voters are less likely to have disabilities. If age is held at a constant, the disability turnout gap in 2010 was between 11 percent and 16 percent, depending on the age group, according to the Rutgers study.
This is not to say that no progress has been made in the past half century to make voting more accessible and available to those with disabilities. Legislation such as the Voting Accessibility for Elderly and Handicapped Act of 1984 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 mandated accessible voting sites and equal opportunities for disabled voters. Most recently, the Help America Vote Act of 2002 required that new electronic voting machines be available for disabled voters. It also provided grants at the local and state level to ensure that all polling places were completely accessible to disabled voters.
Despite these efforts, each election season still presents a noticeable voter turnout gap for those with disabilities. David Newburger, an attorney and commissioner on the disabled for St. Louis, believes that low turnout for disabled voters is just as much a human factor problem as a legislative one.
Newburger knows the struggles of disabled voters firsthand, as he spent his early life on crutches and now works in a wheelchair. He has certainly seen some positive changes toward voter equality over the years. At his old polling place, a person had to walk downstairs to go vote. This presented a major problem to anyone who had trouble walking. Years later, an elevator was installed and Newburger could finally make his way to the polls with ease. Changes like these were often a result of the ADA and the Help America Vote Act.
However, Newburger says that much more needs to be done to make polling places accessible.
“There are a lot of barriers that are still there and people with disabilities get discouraged … they are less inclined to make the effort” to vote, said Newburger.
A report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that in 2008, only 27 percent of polling places in the U.S. were completely accessible to disabled voters. Though this is an improvement from 2000, when the GAO found only 16 percent of polling places accessible, it is a far cry from the equality promised by the HAVA in 2002.
Aside from physical barriers, Newburger believes one of the main problems with current polling places is that poll workers are not properly trained to work with people with a variety of disabilities. Newburger pointed out that it is hard to define disability, and people come with all types of disabilities, so poll workers need to be flexible to understand different types of needs.
“It is always a human factor problem,” said Newburger. “If [poll workers] were trained, we would not have the problems we have.”
Newburger suggests that disabled voters participate in poll worker training. He believes training would be enhanced, as poll workers could see firsthand the struggles that disabled voters face and recognize what solutions are necessary to alleviate those struggles. Newburger says that poll workers are most likely not trying to be mean or discriminative. Rather, they are uninformed about the issues that face many disabled voters and, therefore, unprepared to accommodate those voters.
The St. Louis Disability Vote Summit will take a somewhat different approach, encouraging disabled voters to face obstacles head-on at its election simulation so the problems appear less daunting on Election Day. According to Beals, the first part of the summit will feature booths where people can register to vote, learn about campaign jargon, view and practice filling out a sample ballot and figure out their voting district and polling place.
“A lot of people with disabilities face barriers at their polling place … we want them to face those barriers here (at the summit) so they don’t have to worry on Election Day,” said Beals.
The second half of the summit will be a candidate forum in which participants can submit questions and hear candidates discuss disability issues and policies.
A 2012 study featured in "Social Science Quarterly" found no significant differences in the likelihood of a disabled person being a Democrat or Republican. The study did find that those with disabilities are more likely to favor increased spending on health care, more government jobs and increased attention paid to the civil liberties of those with disabilities.
Newburger agreed that disability does not seem to affect one’s choice of political party, as far as he has seen.
Paraquad and the MDVP hope that events like the Disability Vote Summit will help alleviate some of the anxiety that keeps disabled citizens from voting. A Rutgers national survey in 2000 found that 33 percent of people with disabilities expected to encounter difficulties in voting, compared to only 2 percent of people with no disability. This shows that psychological barriers are just as powerful as physical barriers at the polls.