Disability and election administration in the United States: barriers and improvements

ABSTRACT

Although people with disabilities are considerably less likely to vote than those without a disability, empirical explanations as to why remain underdeveloped. The present study investigates whether this discrepancy in turnout rates is directly related to voting procedures. Analyzing data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we assess the ways in which people with disabilities are disenfranchised by election administration barriers. Specifically, we identify how experiences with voter registration, voter identification regulations, and methods of ballot submission impact those with and without disabilities. Also considered is the degree to which disability affects one’s own political competence and political interest. Reflecting on these findings, we offer recommendations for reducing such electoral hurdles and providing pathways by which comprehensive political incorporation of all individuals with disabilities might be achieved.

KEYWORDS:

• Disability
• voting
• online engagement
• election administration
• Cooperative Congressional Election Study

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

April A. Johnson is assistant professor in the School of Government and International Affairs at Kennesaw State University. Her current research emphasizes the intersection between political psychology and electoral behaviour. She has published articles in the Journal of Politics, Political Studies, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, and the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.

Sierra Powell is professor in the Department of Geography and Political Science at Mount San Antonio College. Her research focuses on American political behaviour and the politics of disability. Her work has appeared in American Politics Research, Presidential Studies Quarterly, and edited volumes.

Notes

1 For a review of the history of legislation about disability and voting, see Powell 2017.

2 See the National Academies of Science report on “Evolving Concepts of Disability” (2007).

3 As of January 2019, sixteen states have same day registration on Election Day. North Carolina allows for same day registration during their period of early voting, but not on Election Day itself.

4 A commonality among researchers in this field is the struggle to locate both quality measures of disability and quality measures of political outcomes within the same dataset. Other datasets do offer better measurement of disability using questions about disability types. The General Social Survey last did so in 2006 and the Current Population Survey does so regularly in their November Voting and Registration Supplement. We choose the CCES for our analyses here because of the breadth of political questions in the survey. Although offering current data, the CPS does not include, for example, measures of partisanship, ideology, political interest, political knowledge, campaign activity, or online engagement, some of which are standard predictors of voting behavior and all of which are central to our analysis as either dependent or independent variables.

5 Age squared was included in order to control for non-linear effects of age on our dependent variables (see Donovan, Tolbert, and Smith 2009).

6 Defined as Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia (see Powell and Johnson 2019).

7 Recall, CCES question wording does not differentiate between absentee ballots mailed voluntarily (i.e., by request) and those ballots mailed within vote by mail only states (e.g., Colorado, Washington).

8 See the NCLS report on Online Voter Registration (2018).