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We are about a month and a half from Election Day. There’s not much time left to engage voters that campaigns usually miss, but it’s still possible. One of those underrated and neglected groups is people with disabilities.
Disabled people have always registered and voted at lower rates than non-disabled people. But the gap seems to be narrowing — evidence that lower political participation isn’t an automatic result of disability itself. Lisa Schur and Douglas Kruse of Rutgers University have been researching disabled people’s voting habits and turnout since 2000. Their studies of the 2016 and 2018 elections offer some hopeful signs and a clearer picture of what actually deters disabled people from voting.
To begin with, the gap between disabled and non-disabled voting rates went down from 6% in 2016 to 4.7% in 2018. That’s a significant change. But why is there a gap at all? There appear to be two main factors.
First, physical, procedural, and logistical barriers uniquely affect disabled people. Polling places are still not as accessible as they are supposed to be, we have a harder time getting to and from the polls on Election Day, and registration and ID procedures impose additional layers of bureaucracy, each with its own time requirements, physical complications, and transportation problems. It simply requires a higher level of commitment, work, and perseverance for disabled people to vote than for most non-disabled voters. For disabled people, voting is often a major undertaking, if it’s even possible.
Second, much like other non-voters and intermittent voters, disabled people in particular may feel they have nothing important to vote for. Despite having on average more at stake than most from government policies, disabled people don’t always see how their votes can ever make a real difference, especially to the unique and often complex problems disabled people in particular face.
This leads to a question. How much is low registration and turnout of disabled voters the fault of external barriers like inaccessible voting systems and poor transportation, and how is much because of disabled voters’ disinterest or disaffection? Kruse and Schur’s 2016 and 2018 studies offer some clues.
In their election year studies, they asked both disabled and non-disabled people who didn’t register, or registered and didn’t vote, to give their reasons, and compared the results. They grouped answers into a number of different factors, which can be further grouped into two broad categories: barriers and disaffection. So, what do the reports suggest?
1. Disaffection is a bigger factor in not registering, while barriers are a bigger factor in not voting. This is not surprising. Disaffected voters are more likely to not even register. And those interested enough to register are more likely to be kept from voting on Election Day by barriers than by a sudden loss of interest.
2. Barriers are a bigger factor for disabled people than for non-disabled people. Again, this is not surprising. After all, we are talking mostly about barriers that specifically keep disabled voters from being able to vote. On average, non-disabled people find it easier to use polling places and voting systems, get to them with little difficulty, and navigate the registration process. It’s not always easy, and there are all kinds of passive and intentional voter suppression factors in play affecting both disabled and non-disabled people, including those in poverty, people who work tight schedules, and people of color. But disabled people tend to face additional barriers as well, and this shows up in the data.
3. There was significantly less disaffection in 2018 among both disabled and non-disabled people, compared to 2016. 2016 was a notorious year for general political dissatisfaction. But by 2018 more people were intensely motivated by the fact that the 2016 election actually did make a big difference, for better or for worse. So among other things, we can see that disabled people are just as affected as non-disabled people by the overall political climate in any given election.
4. Disabled people appear to be less disaffected from politics overall than non-disabled people, by comparatively small but often significant margins. This may go back to how much disabled people rely on programs, services, and rights directly affected by government action, compared to the average non-disabled voter. It may also reflect the gradually increasing influence of organized and online disability activism.
Still, somewhere between 40% and 15% of disabled non-voters themselves at least partially cite some form of disaffection, and it remains the most frequently-cited reason why eligible disabled people don’t register. Is this surprising or not? It depends on how we understand the relationship between disability and politics.
If we view disability mainly as an every-day, all-consuming bundle of personal struggles, then we might expect disabled people to be less interested in politics. If it’s hard enough just to get through each day, that’s less time and energy to spend on what can seem like more distant matters like politics and voting.
On the other hand, given how many economic, legal, and social barriers complicate most disabled people’s lives, we might instead expect disabled people to feel more invested in the outcome of elections. Employment rights, benefits, health care, long term care, housing, and transportation alone can virtually define a disabled person’s life, and they are all directly shaped by policy and politics at the local, state, and national levels.
Kruse and Schur’s numbers seem to bear this out. While overall registration and voting rates of disabled people remains lower than for non-disabled people, the most significant reasons for this have to do with external barriers and logistical difficulties, not lack of interest. In fact, disabled people seem to be consistently more engaged than non-disabled voters — not by a lot, but by measurable degrees.
This should dispel one possible misconception — that disabled people are too busy or overwhelmed to care about voting and politics. If anything, disabled people are slightly more interested in politics than non-disabled people.
But what about those disabled people who still aren’t engaged? Although physical and logistical barriers seem to have a much greater effect on reducing disabled people’s participation, it is still worthwhile for candidates and parties to think about what they can do to increase disabled people’s interest and motivation.
Finally, it looks like the more significant factor leading to higher voting rates in 2018 was reduced disaffection. This strongly suggests that candidates can do something about disaffection of disabled voters. But what? What do disabled people want from candidates? What qualities would energize those disabled voters who are usually detached from the political process?
Based on common sense and years of discussions among disabled people themselves, disabled voters seem to be looking for candidates who offer a thoughtful and ambitious combination of three things: symbolism, substance, and hope.
Symbolism
Disabled people care about how they are addressed and depicted by candidates and their campaigns. For example:
How are disabled people’s images, words, and stories are used in campaign events, ads, and social media? Are they used to elicit pity and sentimentality, soften a candidate’s image, or to communicate something substantive about disabled people’s lives? Do campaigns treat disabled people as silent, passive, grateful, and weak? Or, do disabled people have a voice and a strong, active role in campaigns? Are we props to be arranged on a stage, or coveted voters who can help a candidate win?
Campaigns should avoid visuals where the candidate towers over a disabled person, or presents a parental, caregiving image. Try to project respect and partnership with disabled people, not paternalism or condescension. And sentimentality is never a good tone for disabled voters, even if other voters enjoy it.
It’s also important to be inclusive within the disability community itself. Include disabled people of color, and people with all different kinds of disabilities. And don’t only include disabled people who are conventionally attractive or “normal” looking.
Above all, treat disabled people as voters, not just people that other voters care about. Reaching out to parents of disabled children is good, but it’s not the same as reaching out to disabled people. Reaching out to sons and daughters of aging parents is good, but it’s not the same as reaching out to older disabled people themselves. Disabled people should be subjects, not objects. Speak to us, not just about us.
Substance
While relatively few disabled voters are activists or policy experts, most of us really do thirst for concrete disability policy ideas from election candidates. It’s not hard to figure out what we want and need:
• Health care and long term care everyone can get and afford, and that we never have to worry about losing.
• Benefits that lift disabled people out of poverty and enable us to work as much as our desires, talents, and capacity will allow.
• Affordable, accessible housing and transportation.
• Meaningful job and career opportunities.
• Strong enforcement of accessibility and civil rights laws.
• Real educational opportunity in integrated settings.
• Addressing risks to our lives, choices, and independence.
We also need reassurance that the candidate’s other policy ideas w0n’t harm disabled people in unintended ways. For instance, on the progressive side, policies like banning plastic straws and allowing assisted suicide may be popular, but they are uniquely harmful to disabled people. Meanwhile, dismantling and cutting Medicaid, and reducing regulations on businesses may please conservatives but they threaten disabled people of all political stripes.
Candidates should realize that while disabled people can be ideologically polarized like any other voter, on disability policy we may not always fit so easily into established categories, and our votes should never be taken for granted, by any candidate or party.
Hope
Finally, and maybe most importantly, disabled voters want candidates to stake out disability positions that are serious and practical, not just empty gestures.
Disabled people who are naturally interested in policy and politics tend to notice and celebrate every nuanced change and accomplishment, even when they are only symbolic. But most ordinary disabled voters aren’t impressed unless real change happens, or seems to be within reach.
So many structures of disabled life change very little or at all over the years, even over decades. Most change very little, if at all, no matter who is in charge. At any rate, that’s what it often seems like. And that’s why so many disabled people believe that politics are irrelevant. It’s part of what contributes to voter disaffection among disabled people — the feeling that nothing changes or ever will change, and that politicians only care about disabled people for the humanizing photo ops.
Disabled people are also often even more mindful than most voters about the gap between idealism and realism in politics. On some level, we would like to see revolutionary change in the fundamentals of disability life in the United States. But we may be slightly less interested in betting everything on it. Incremental progress means improvement, which in disabled people’s lives is often truly much better than no change at all. Plus, some disabled people outright despise what they see as grandiose proposals that they believe have zero chance of ever being implemented.
What candidates can do is to not only present good disability plans, but offer real commitment and viable plans to move on the ideas they propose. They can offer not just good ideas, but real hope that they can actually become a reality.
There is still time for candidates at all levels to make a credible pitch to disabled voters. Disabled people are ready to be motivated. But we are also discerning and demanding. Even those of us who appear disengaged know what we want. We want respect, concrete ideas, and sound, realistic plans. We want symbolism, substance, and hope.
