Voters with disabilities are increasingly large voice that could swing election, advocates say

Gene Myers
NorthJersey.com

Voters with disabilities —  long ignored as a minority voice —  may come together as a “sleeping tiger” in the general election due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has made health care and jobs their top priority, advocates said.

People with disabilities, often not represented in public policy and requiring after-the-fact fixes such as those found in the Americans with Disabilities Act, may have a stronger political impact than previously realized, according to a new study. 

A sleeping tiger 

The disability community is “an increasingly large, powerful and potentially decisive percentage of the electorate in key battleground states and across the country,” said Lisa Schur, who co-directs the Program for Disability Research at Rutgers University.

Historically splintered into smaller groups lobbying for specific needs, including those with hearing or vision loss, mobility challenges or developmental disabilities, the various communities may all be coming together under one tent in November, said Schur, who published the report with her husband, Douglas Kruse, a fellow Rutgers economist.

The result may be a voting bloc large enough to swing elections in key states, said Kruse, who has focused on disability research since he was paralyzed due to a crash in 1990. 

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The disability researchers compared this year’s election in the disability community to waking “a sleeping tiger.” 

“The sheer size of the disability electorate makes it clear that people with disabilities and their family members have the potential to swing elections,” Schur said. 

The report identified 38.3 million eligible voters with disabilities. This is a 19.8% jump since 2008. Include the millions of voters living with disabled people, and more than 25% of the American electorate may be motivated by issues that affect the disability community. This exceeds the number of eligible voters who are Black (29.9 million) or Hispanic/Latino (31.3 million), according to the report. 

In New Jersey there are 901,446, people with disabilities, according to the 2019 Disability Statistics Compendium put out by the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Statistics and Demographics.

Why now?

Political battles and the pandemic have made health care and jobs high-priority issues for many across the country, but even more so for people with disabilities, advocates said. 

A national survey in 2006 showed that people with disabilities care more about employment and health care than do people without disabilities, Kruse said. A 2018 study by Stan Greenberg better showed “that people with disabilities are more likely than those without disabilities to care about the Affordable Care Act,” Kruse added.

Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations Distinguished Professor Douglas L. Kruse at his home with his wife Professor and Chair, Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations Lisa Schur.

That particular survey showed that people with disabilities were “part of the blue wave that year,” Kruse said. “People with disabilities have taken a greater hit in employment since January, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers, so employment is an even bigger issue for them than for workers in general. To be clear, it’s probably always a bigger concern for people with disabilities because of their low employment rates and the many barriers to employment they face, but it’s likely to be even more important this year.”

The median earnings of full-time workers with disabilities was $40,454, compared with $46,250 for their counterparts without disabilities, “resulting in an earnings gap of $5,796,” states the 2019 Annual Report on People with Disabilities in America, published by the Disability Statistics and Demographics Rehabilitation Research and Training Center. The earnings gap widened between 2017 and 2018, from $5,216 to $5,796. 

“Those two issues are very big right now, and I think that is something that could bring a lot of disparate people together in terms of how they are voting,” said Schur, who added that people voting along these lines may not even think of themselves as disabled. 

“I think this is uniting people who might not even consider themselves to have disabilities. It may just be, ‘I have some health problems’ or ‘I have a problem hearing or problems walking. But I don’t have a disability,' ” she said.

Potential obstacles remain 

Kruse and Schur conducted their first national study on disability and voting in 2012. They surveyed 3,000 people and found that 30% of people with disabilities had problems accessing polling sites compared with only 8% of people without disabilities. 

Austin Epstein of Bergenfield, whose cerebral palsy necessitates a wheelchair for mobility and impairs his speech, said he has had to go to extra lengths to vote through the years. Annoyances like the distance he’s had to travel to polling sites or the height of the voting machines had to be overcome. This year, his COVID-19 mask further complicated his impaired speech and created yet another struggle for him.

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But he was “determined” to cast his ballot. 

“As soon as I received my mail-in ballot, I made a choice. I mailed mine right back,” he said.

While increased mail-in voting should increase participation, on the other side of the coin is a population that is already more socially isolated, often with underlying health issues that have kept them home, wary of the risks brought on by the pandemic.

“As a disabled person, voting by mail is not new to me. I have been doing it for a while," said Franklin Lakes resident Linda Webster-Cennerazzo. "My biggest discussion this year is how I am going to return my ballot back without exposing myself to the COVID-19 virus. I have a choice of the U.S. post office or dropping off ballot at the county of Bergen ballot drop box located in the next town.”

She is leaning toward putting her ballot in the Bergen County drop box, because it is in an outside area, open enough that it looks safe, she said.

People who have problems with fine motor skills and those who need assistance going out may also be hindered, especially if they live alone, advocates said. 

Voting issues may have a dispiriting effect, said Norman Smith, chairperson of the statewide Independent Living Council. And while issues such as employment are a top priority for him, in the end he just wants fellow voters with disabilities to be heard.

“The rights of people with disabilities have been ignored by this administration. There have been attempts to pare back our rights with administrative actions in various federal agencies and departments. Keeping our civil rights protected is the key to employment and health care coverage,” he said.

Disability Rights New Jersey spearheaded a push to help people with disabilities register to vote. It also set up a voting hotline in an effort to mitigate these problems. 

“The ability to obtain access for people with disabilities is the idea of trying to address as many issues and barriers for as many people as you can,” said Mary Ciccone, the group's director of policy.

The hotline will be open until the election to answer questions, “because this particular election is so different than every other election,” Ciccone said.

Complaints about accessible entrances being locked or a lack of accessible parking or signs pointing the way to polling places will get handled right away. 

A ballot drop box is seen in front of the Hopatcong Municipal Building Wednesday, Sept. 30.

Ciccone has been working with the Division of Civil Rights and the Division of Elections, as well as county election officials, to increase accessibility at polling sites across the state since 2010 and has seen noteworthy improvement in recent times. The most common problems she said she sees these days involve the accessible voting machines that are supposed to be at every polling site.

These machines make the election process audible for those with vision loss, but they are “difficult to use by the blind because of an audio component that is not intuitive,” she said, adding that poll workers often don’t know how to use them. 

The Alliance Center for Independence has also been on the lookout for potential problems.  

“There have been people who have reached out to us and said that drop boxes are in inaccessible locations or are situated in such a way that makes it difficult for folks with various types of mobility devices to use,” said Charles Dodge, social recreation coordinator at the Alliance Center in Edison.

“We plan on reaching out to all of the county boards of elections to remind them to place their boxes in accessible locations and with signage,” said Carole Tonks, executive director of the center. 

As far as whether issues like these will hinder turnout, “It’s hard to say,” Ciccone said. “I encourage people with disabilities to get out and vote, because it is important that they take part and have their say. If you don’t get out there and vote, then people will just ignore you.”

Gene Myers is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

Email: myers@northjersey.com 

Twitter: @myersgene