Disabled Voters Face Turnout Gap Nationwide

The latest news on this front comes from The Hill‘s Reid Wilson:

The number of Americans with physical or mental disabilities who turned out to vote surged in the 2018 midterm elections, though they still lagged far behind turnout among those who do not face disabilities, a new report finds.

That report, by the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, found turnout among those with disabilities rose to 49.3 percent in 2018, a nearly 20 percent increase over the 2014 midterms.

But turnout among voters without a disability rose to 54 percent, leaving a 4.7-point turnout gap between those who face disabilities and those who do not. That represents as many as 14.7 million Americans with disabilities who did not cast a ballot last year.

“There is a persistent gap in voter turnout among people with disabilities,” said Doug Kruse, a Rutgers professor and co-author of the study. “People with disabilities are just as interested in elections, they’re just as engaged, they care just as much. So the lower voter turnout isn’t apathy or anything like that, it does seem to be due to other factors.”

See full story here.