Today is Election Day in the United States. For millions of Americans, voting means entering a polling place, filling out a ballot, and leaving. For disabled voters, the ability to cast a ballot is not always that simple.
Last week, I voted in the 2026 election using Massachusetts’s accessible electronic ballot system. I was able to complete my ballot independently without worrying about whether someone would be able to read my handwriting. That matters to me.
I have cerebral palsy, which affects my fine motor skills. I can write, but my handwriting is difficult to read. I rarely write anything by hand anymore.
Voting should not require me to wonder whether my disability will make my choices difficult to understand. In 2022, accessible electronic ballots became available statewide through a provision of the VOTES Act. The law also made mail in voting permanent and expanded early voting in Massachusetts. For me, one requirement within a much larger voting law made a deeply personal difference.
More disabled Americans are voting. In 2020, 17.7 million disabled Americans reported voting, up from 16 million in 2016. More than half of disabled voters cast their ballots by mail that year. The turnout gap between disabled and nondisabled voters also narrowed from 6.3 percentage points in 2016 to 5.7 points in 2020.
Yet those gains exist alongside barriers that go much deeper than whether a ballot is accessible. Nearly two million disabled voters experienced difficulties voting in 2020. For some disabled people under guardianship, the question can begin even earlier, with whether they are allowed to vote at all.
Voting rights can still be restricted based on guardianship. Federal survey data collected from 33 states found that nearly 7,300 people lost their voting rights because of findings related to “mental incompetence” between 2012 and 2014. Laws vary by state, but the result can be another barrier between disabled Americans and the ballot box.
That belongs in our conversations about voting accessibility, too. Access is not only about whether someone can enter a polling place or physically mark a ballot. It is also about whether disabled people are treated as full participants in our democracy.
My own barrier looks different. Cerebral palsy affects the way I interact with something as simple as a paper ballot. Another voter may be blind and need an accessible electronic ballot to vote privately. Someone else may encounter an inaccessible polling place. Disability is not one experience, which is why accessible voting is so important.
For me, independence does not always mean doing something exactly the way a nondisabled person does it. Sometimes independence comes from having the right accommodation.
Last week, that accommodation worked. There was nothing dramatic about sitting down and completing my ballot, and that is exactly what made it meaningful. I could focus on my choices instead of whether someone would be able to decipher my handwriting.
Voting should feel ordinary for disabled people. We shouldn’t have to wonder about whether the process is accessible. Our votes matter.
Sources:
Fessler, Pam. “Disabled and Fighting for the Right to Vote.” NPR, 4 Sept. 2016, www.npr.org/2016/09/04/492430780/disabled-and-fighting-for-the-right-to-vote.
Fong, Sabrina. “Why the Movements for Voting Rights and Disability Rights Are Strongest Together.” Ford Foundation, 25 May 2022, www.fordfoundation.org/news-and-stories/stories/posts/why-the-movements-for-voting-rights-and-disability-rights-are-strongest-together/.
Kruse, Douglas, and Lisa Schur. “Projecting the Number of Eligible Voters with Disabilities in the 2024 Elections.” School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University, 14 Oct. 2024, smlr.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/Documents/Centers/Program_Disability_Research/Disability_Electorate_Projections_Report_Oct2024.pdf.
Métraux, Julia. “Trump’s Promise to End Vote-by-Mail Is Yet Another Attack on Disabled Voters.” Mother Jones, 18 Aug. 2025, www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/08/trump-vote-mail-disabled-ballot-order/.
Morris, Amanda. “Britney Spears’s Case Calls Attention to Wider Questions on Guardianship.” The New York Times, 10 July 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/07/10/us/britney-spears-conservatorships-guardianships.html.
Nostrant, Rachel. “In Some States, Having a Guardian Means Not Having a Vote.” The New York Times, 29 Aug. 2024, www.nytimes.com/2024/08/29/us/guardianship-voting-rights-disabilities.html.
Reed, Rachel. “Your Massachusetts Voting Rights Guide.” Harvard Law School, 9 Oct. 2024, hls.harvard.edu/today/your-massachusetts-voting-rights-guide/.
Smith, Meghan. “Blind and Low-Vision Voters Hail Massachusetts’ New Statewide Online Voting Option.” GBH, 28 Oct. 2022, www.wgbh.org/news/politics/2022-10-28/blind-and-low-vision-voters-hail-massachusetts-new-statewide-online-voting-option.
Smith, Meghan. “For Blind Voters, Massachusetts Is One of the Most Accessible States for Voting.” GBH, 27 Oct. 2026, www.wgbh.org/news/local/2026-10-27/for-blind-voters-massachusetts-is-one-of-the-most-accessible-states-for-voting. Walter, Shoshana. “Disabled and Disenfranchised: Families Fight to Restore Voting Rights.” Reveal, 30 June 2021, revealnews.org/article/disabled-and-disenfranchised-families-fight-to-restore-voting-rights/.