Absentee Ballots Mean Disability Voting Access

Article by Kira Tiller, HSDA Disability Caucus Chair.

     Imagine wanting to vote, while sitting in a wheelchair at your polling place, looking up at an insurmountable flight of stairs. For many disabled people, absentee ballots are the difference between voting and not voting. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, at least 30 states made it much easier to vote by absentee ballot, adding to the several other states that had already been encouraging no-excuse absentee ballots.

  Unfortunately, as a backlash to expanded voting options during the height of the pandemic, many states have passed laws recently that curtail voting accessibility, including some laws that the judiciary has found to be in violation of the Civil Rights Act. For example, Texas Senate Bill 1 banned ballot drop boxes, prohibited voters from proactively sending in mail-in ballot applications, banned drive-through voting, and cut early voting hours. Until some of the provisions of this bill were struck down by the Texas District Court in August 2023, this law prevented tens of thousands of eligible Texas voters from having their votes counted. Other provisions of this law are still being tried in Texas courts right now.  Also, eleven states have banned voting drop boxes, and ten additional states either restrict or do not use them. And a universal problem is lack of simple access to absentee ballots in many states, which disproportionately impacts disabled people.

     This environment creates a call to action for all young people passionate about equity. Organizations such as AAPD - American Association of People with Disabilities are organizing voting campaigns, including youth activists, through their AAPD REV UP coalition. REV UP stands for “Register, Educate, Vote, Use your Power!” We can all pitch in to prevent the disabled community from being silenced at the polls.