**Disability and Voting Accessibility in the 2022 Elections:**

**Final Report on Survey Results**

**Submitted to the Election Assistance Commission**

**May 11, 2023**

Dr. Lisa Schur

Professor

Co-Director, Program for Disability Research

School of Management and Labor Relations

Rutgers University

50 Labor Center Way

New Brunswick, 08901

lschur@smlr.rutgers.edu

Dr. Douglas Kruse

Distinguished Professor

Co-Director, Program for Disability Research

School of Management and Labor Relations

Rutgers University

94 Rockafeller Road

Piscataway, NJ 08854

dkruse@smlr.rutgers.edu

Dr. Mason Ameri

Associate Professor of Professional Practice

Rutgers Business School

Rutgers University

100 Rockafeller Road

Piscataway, NJ 08854

Mason.ameri@rutgers.edu

Dr. Meera Adya

Research Professor

Department of Administration, Rehabilitation, & Post-Secondary Education

Research Scientist, Interwork Institute

San Diego State University

meeraadya@gmail.com

ContentsExecutive Summary	11.  Survey Method Overview	22.  Key results	3A. Demographic and Disability Characteristics	3B.  Voter Turnout	4C.  Voting Methods	4D.  Voting Difficulties	5E.  Perceived Ease or Difficulty of Voting	9F.  Voting Difficulty by Race and Ethnicity	9I.  Perceived Treatment by Election Officials	11J.  Information Sources on Voting Process	12K.  Confidence That Vote Was Accurately Counted	13L.  Voter Comparisons of 2022 Voting to Pre-pandemic Experience	13M.  Preference for How to Vote in Next Election	13N.  Non-voting Political Participation	14O.  Political Interest and Perceptions of Political Efficacy	14P.  Recruitment for Voting	15Q.  Other Facilitators of Political Participation	163.  Conclusion	17Appendix:  Survey Questions to Identify Disability	18

**List of Figures**

**Figure 1:  Difficulties in Voting Across All Methods, 2020 and 2022 		  5**

**Figure 2: Any Difficulty in Voting at Polling Place by Disability Type, 2022	  7**

**Figure 3: Any Difficulty in Voting with Mail Ballot by Disability Type, 2022	  8**

**Figure 4:  Needing Assistance or Having Difficulty in Voting, 2022 		11**

****

**List of Tables**

**Table 1: Demographic Characteristics in 2022 Survey**

**Table 2: Disability Characteristics in 2022 Survey**

**Table 3: Voter Registration and Turnout in 2020 and 2022**

**Table 4: Voting Methods Among Those Who Voted, 2020 and 2022**

**Table 5: Voting Methods by Type of Disability, 2022**

**Table 6:  Any Voting Difficulties in 2020 and 2022**

**Table 7:  Specific In-Person Voting Difficulties in 2020 and 2022**

**Table 8:  Specific In-Person Voting Difficulties by Disability Type in 2022**

**Table 9:  Wait Time for In-Person Voting by in 2020 and 2022**

**Table 10: Wait Time for In-Person Voting by Disability Type in 2022**

**Table 11: Specific Mail Voting Difficulties in 2020 and 2022**

**Table 12: Specific Mail Voting Difficulties by Disability Type in 2022**

**Table 13: Expected Voting Difficulties by Disability Type in 2022**

**Table 14: Perceived Ease or Difficulty of Voting in 2020 and 2022**

**Table 15: Perceived Ease or Difficulty of Voting by Disability Type in 2022**

**Table 16: Voting Difficulty by Race and Ethnicity in 2022**

**Table 17: Need for Assistance in Voting in 2020 and 2022**

**Table 18: Need for Assistance in Voting by Disability Type in 2022**

**Table 19: Needing Assistance or Having Difficulty in Voting in 2022**

**Table 20: Treatment by Election Officials in 2020 and 2022**

**Table 21: Treatment by Election Officials by Disability Type in 2022**

**Table 22: Sources of Information on Voting Process in 2022**

**Table 23: Accessibility of Information Sources in 2022**

**Table 24: Confidence That Vote was Accurately Counted in 2020 and 2022**

**Table 25: Confidence That Vote was Accurately Counted by Disability Type in 2022**

**Table 26: Voter Comparisons of 2022 Voting Experience to Pre-Pandemic Experience**

**Table 27: Preference for How to Vote in Next Election**

**Table 28:  Non-voting Political Participation in 2020 and 2022**

**Table 29:  Non-voting Political Participation by Disability Type in 2022**

**Table 30:  Political Interest and Perceptions of Political Efficacy in 2020 and 2022**

**Table 31:  Political Interest and Perceptions of Political Efficacy by Disability Type in 2022**

**Table 32:  Recruitment for Voting in 2020 and 2022**

**Table 33:  Recruitment for Voting by Disability Type in 2022**

**Table 34:  Transportation by Disability Type in 2022**

**Table 35:  Other Facilitators of Political Participation by Disability Type in 2022**

# Executive Summary

Analysis of the 2022 Disability and Voting Accessibility Survey, based on representative samples of citizens with and without disabilities eligible to vote in the November 2022 elections, indicates similar voting accessibility as in the comparable 2020 survey and greater accessibility than in the 2012 survey.  The disability sample includes people with a range of disabilities based on Census Bureau measures.  Some key results include the following:

· People with disabilities voted at a 3.6% lower rate overall than people without disabilities in 2022.

· About one in seven voters with disabilities encountered difficulties voting in 2022, which was a slight increase from the one in nine voters with disabilities who encountered difficulties in 2020.

· The likelihood of difficulties voting in person in 2022 was 20% among people with disabilities compared to 6% among people without disabilities. The likelihood of difficulties voting with a mail ballot was 6% among people with disabilities compared to less than 1% among people without disabilities.

· One in five voters with a disability either needed assistance or had some difficulty in voting in 2022, which was three times the rate of voters without disabilities.

· Voting difficulties were most common among people with vision and cognitive impairments.

· Close to three-fifths of voters with disabilities voted with a mail ballot or early in person in 2022, compared to just over half of voters without disabilities.  The shift in mail voting between 2020 and 2022 was similar between voters with and without disabilities.

· Voters with disabilities were similar to voters without disabilities in perceived treatment by election officials, confidence that their votes were accurately counted in 2022, and the extent to which they report following politics.

Following the substantial drop from 2012 to 2020 in voting difficulties among people with disabilities (documented in our previous report), there was a slight uptick in 2022.  This is partly explained by a shift toward voting in polling places in 2022, following the low rate of polling place voting in 2020 due to the pandemic.  Voting difficulties are generally more likely in polling places than in voting by mail.  The shift partly reflects reversals of eased pandemic-related voting rules in 2020.    Another explanation includes changes in the composition of the voting electorate between 2020 and 2022, particularly a small increase in disability severity that may reflect the effects of long Covid. 

This report reviews other key results contained in 35 tables, making comparisons to the 2020 survey where available.  These tables cover a variety of aspects of the voting experience, including specific difficulties, need for assistance, confidence that one’s vote was accurately counted, voter comparisons of 2022 voting to their pre-pandemic experience, and preferred method of voting in the next election.  We also provide data on non-voting forms of political participation, political interest, recruitment for voting, and other facilitators of voting.  We break out all results by major disability type (hearing, vision, cognitive, and mobility impairment) and need for help with daily activities. 

# 1.  Survey Method Overview

  With support from the Election Assistance Commission (EAC), Rutgers University worked with the survey firm SSRS to conduct a survey of voting-eligible citizens with and without disabilities following the 2022 national elections.  The survey was designed to replicate the method and questions of our 2012 and 2020 post-election surveys that the EAC also sponsored. The 2022 survey has 2,001 respondents, stratified to include 1,198 citizens with disabilities and 803 without disabilities.  As in 2012 and 2020, the oversampling of citizens with disabilities was done to get a large enough sample for small margins of error and reliable breakdowns by major types of disability and demographic variables.

The survey was conducted by SSRS, the same firm that did the earlier surveys. SSRS is a well-established survey firm and a member of the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR).   The surveys were conducted using representative samples combined with state-of-the-art techniques and AAPOR standards.  The survey samples are weighted to ensure they closely reflect the underlying populations of citizens with and without disabilities.  

Identification of disability is based on seven questions.  The first six questions are used in the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and Current Population Survey Voting and Registration Supplement.  These questions identify mobility, vision, hearing, and cognitive impairments, and difficulty with self-care or going outside alone.  As in earlier surveys, we added a seventh broad question to capture other types of disability.  The seven questions are presented in the Appendix.  For those identified with a disability, we asked several questions about the nature of the disability (condition, duration, and need for assistance).  

The questions about voting and voter engagement are based on validated measures from the Current Population Survey and American National Election Studies (sponsored by the National Science Foundation).  Questions about difficulties in voting were developed in consultation with political scientists and representatives of disability organizations.  

# 2.  Key results

The results are shown in 35 tables at the end of this document.  The tables contain many detailed breakdowns; in the discussion below, we focus only on what we see as the key results, but we are glad to engage in discussion with the EAC and other interested parties on any of the results.  The tables contain asterisks indicating which differences are statistically significant—that is, large enough to be outside the margin of sampling error so that a difference of zero can be statistically rejected at a confidence level of at least 95%.

It is essential that the tables are fully accessible for all people with disabilities.  We have used several techniques to increase the accessibility of the tables and are willing to take further steps to resolve any accessibility issues.

Following is an overview of the key results from the survey, organized by topic.  The key result for each topic is presented in an initial bolded sentence.

## A. Demographic and Disability Characteristics

**The sample broadly reflects what we know about the disability population from many other data sources (Tables 1 and 2). There appears to be a small increase in disability severity from 2020 to 2022.**

People with disabilities are disproportionately likely to be older and non-married, less likely to have a high school or college degree, and less likely to be Hispanic/Latino (Table 1).  They are similar, however, to people without disabilities on breakdowns of gender and geographic region.  Within the disability sample in 2022 (Table 2), mobility impairments are most common (49%), followed by cognitive (24%), hearing (17%), and vision impairments (11%).  (Note that a person may fall into more than one of these categories.) Three-fourths (76%) say they are limited in activities of daily living, and one-third (36%) report needing help in activities of daily living.  Just over two-fifths (43%) report “a lot” of difficulty in daily activities.

The 2020 and 2022 disability samples are similar on most measures, except that there was an increase in the percent saying they are limited in activities of daily living (from 69% to 76%) and an increase in the reported level of difficulty with activities (an increase from 3.11 to 3.22 on a 4-point scale) (Table 2). These changes may reflect the effects of long Covid that appear to be responsible for increased disability prevalence in the past two years.[footnoteRef:1] [1:  National Center for Health Statistics, “Nearly One in Five American Adults Who Have Had COVID-19 Still Have ‘Long COVID’,” June 22, 2022; Louise Sheiner and Nasiha Salwati, “How Much is Long COVID Reducing Labor Force Participation? Not Much (So Far),” Brookings Institution, Hutchins Center Working Paper #80, October 2022.] 

## B.  Voter Turnout

**Consistent with data from 2020 and prior elections, people with disabilities appear slightly less likely than those without disabilities to have voted in 2022 (Table 3).**

These results indicate a 3.6 percentage point gap between the turnout of people with and without disabilities in 2022, identical to the 3.6 point gap in the 2020 general election.  The gap is slightly lower than the 4.7 gap estimated for the 2018 midterm elections from Census data,[footnoteRef:2] but it should be cautioned that the two data sources use somewhat different methods.  We will have a much better sense of the 2022 turnout of people with disabilities when the larger Census sample is analyzed. [2:  Lisa Schur and Douglas Kruse, “Fact sheet: Disability and Voter Turnout in the 2018 Elections,” Rutgers University Program for Disability Research. ] 

While the 3.6-point disability gap is within the survey’s margin of error, the gap expands to 10.0 percentage points which is outside the margin of error when we adjust for age—that is when we account for the fact that older people are more likely to vote by comparing people with and without disabilities who are of the same age.  The age-adjusted numbers also show that the lowest relative turnout in 2022 occurred among people with cognitive impairments (a 13.4-point gap compared to people without disabilities) and mobility impairments (a 13.1-point gap).

The reported turnout numbers are higher than the actual turnout, reflecting the well-known phenomenon of survey respondents overreporting socially desirable activities such as voting.  Past research on overreporting gives no reason to think that overreporting will differ by disability status.[footnoteRef:3]  Overreporting may slightly decrease the overall estimates of voting difficulties. Still, there is no reason to believe it will create bias in comparing voting difficulties between people with and without disabilities. [3:  While no studies have specifically related disability to overreporting, there are mixed results on characteristics related to both disability and overreporting such as age, education, income, religious attendance, and contact by political parties (e.g., Kanazawa, S., “Who Lies on Surveys, and What Can We Do About It.” Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies, 2005, 30(3):361; Holbrook, A., and J. Krosnick, “Social Desirability Bias in Voter Turnout Reports: Tests Using the Item Count Technique.” Public Opinion Quarterly 2010, 74(1):37–6l; Brenner, P. S., “Overreporting of Voting Participation as a Function of Identity.” Social Science Journal, 2012, 49(4):421–29).] 

## C.  Voting Methods

**The shift to voting in person in 2022 compared to 2020 was similar between voters with and without disabilities (Tables 4 and 5)**.  

Following the high rate of voting by mail in 2020 due to the pandemic, the percentage voting in person at a polling place or election office increased in 2022 by nine percentage points among both voters without disabilities (56% to 65%) and voters with disabilities (49% to 58%) (Table 4, first row).  While the size of the shift to using a mail ballot was similar, people with disabilities are generally more likely than those without disabilities to vote by mail.[footnoteRef:4]  About two-fifths (42%) of voters with disabilities used a mail ballot in 2022, compared to one-third (35%) of voters without disabilities (Table 4, columns 4 and 5).  Voters with disabilities were especially likely to return a mail ballot using the postal service. They were no more or less likely than voters without disabilities to use drop boxes or take a ballot to a polling place or election office.     [4:  See 2020 election figures at Lisa Schur and Douglas Kruse, “Fact Sheet: Disability and Voter Turnout in the 2020 Elections,” Program for Disability Research, Rutgers University.] 

The use of mail ballots was higher for voters with disabilities than those without disabilities across the major disability types (Table 5).  People with mobility impairments and those needing help with daily activities were the likeliest to use mail ballots (46% and 47%, respectively).  

Both early voting and voting by mail are designed to make voting easier.  Two-fifths (61%) of voters with disabilities used one of these two methods in 2022, compared to just over half (54%) of voters without disabilities (Table 4, columns 4 and 5).  

## D.  Voting Difficulties

**The incidence of voting difficulties among voters with disabilities ticked up slightly from 2020 to 2022 (Tables 6 to 12).**

Overall, the percent of voters with disabilities reporting voting difficulties across all methods increased from 11% to 14%, while the rate dropped from 6% to 4% among voters without disabilities.  This is shown in Figure 1.

Looking only at those who voted in person at a polling place or election office, reported difficulties among voters with disabilities increased from 18% to 20%. In comparison, the corresponding change in difficulties among voters using mail ballots was 5% to 6%. Both of these changes from 2020 to 2022 are within the survey’s margin of error.  As noted in our previous report, voting difficulties for both methods decreased significantly from 2012 to 2020, and the 2022 rates of voting difficulty continue to be well below the 2012 rates.

Because voting difficulties declined among voters without disabilities from 2020 to 2022, the gap in difficulties between voters with and without disabilities increased.   In 2022 the overall rate of voting difficulties was over three times higher among people with disabilities than those without disabilities (14% compared to 4%).  Among those voting in person, the rate of difficulties was over three times higher among people with disabilities (20% compared to 6% among voters without disabilities). Among those voting with a mail ballot, the rate of difficulties was twenty times higher (6.1% compared to 0.3% among voters without disabilities).  These disability gaps in each year, and the increase in the gap between years, are strong enough to be outside the statistical margin of error.

Why did the disability gap in voting difficulties apparently increase between 2020 and 2022?  Our report on the 2020 survey found that about half of the drop in polling place voting difficulties from 2012 to 2020 appeared to be due to a change in the composition of polling place voters, as people with the most severe disabilities were disproportionately likely to switch to voting by mail.  Similarly, some of the differences in voting difficulties between 2020 and 2022 appear due to a change in the composition of the voters between the two elections. It appears there was a slight increase in disability severity between 2020 and 2022, as reflected in Table 2 by an increase both in difficulty with and needing help with daily activities in the disability sample.  This increase in severity may be because of long Covid illness, which has increased over the past two years and is linked to some reduction in labor force participation and hours worked.[footnoteRef:5]  Apart from this compositional change that is linked to increased voting difficulties, there was also a general shift toward voting in person in 2022.  Since voting in person tends to involve more voting difficulties, this shift accounts for about one-third of the overall increase in voting difficulties.  This shift may partly reflect the rollback of temporary state policies that expanded mail and early voting options in the early stages of the pandemic in 2020. [5:  Louise Sheiner and Nasiha Salwati, “How Much is Long COVID Reducing Labor Force Participation? Not Much (So Far),” Brookings Institution, Hutchins Center Working Paper #80, October 2022.] 

In sum, it appears that compositional and voting method changes among voters with disabilities can account for most or all of the slightly increased rate of voting difficulties among voters with disabilities between 2020 and 2022. However, it is difficult to assign a precise number to these effects, given the minor changes involved.  In our 2020 report, we attributed about half of the drop in in-person polling place difficulties between 2012 and 2020 to improved polling place accessibility, but we cannot make a firm declaration on the role of accessibility in the changes between 2020 and 2022.

*Specific difficulties with voting in person*

Looking at specific difficulties, in-person voters with disabilities in 2022 were more likely than those without disabilities to report difficulties waiting in line, getting inside the polling place, reading or seeing the ballot, or writing on the ballot (Table 7, column 6).  The only significant change in voting difficulties between 2020 and 2022 is that voters without disabilities reported less difficulty waiting in line in 2022 (unlike voters with disabilities who did not report a significant change). 

Figure 2 shows the difficulty in voting broken down by disability type, summarized from Table 8.  Just over one-half of people with vision impairments (53%) reported difficulty in voting at a polling place, although the rates of difficulty were also high for other disability types, particularly those needing help in daily activities (30%) and with cognitive impairments (28%).

*Wait times at polling places*

The surveys asked polling place voters how long they had to wait in line to vote.  As shown in Table 9, the average wait time in 2022 was 17 minutes for voters with disabilities, very close to that for voters without disabilities (columns 4 and 5).  These average wait times dropped significantly for voters with and without disabilities from 2020 to 2022.  Table 10 shows that while people with vision impairments appeared to have the highest average wait time (35 minutes), the wait times did not significantly vary by disability type.

*Specific difficulties with mail ballots*

Among voters with disabilities using mail ballots, the most commonly reported problem was difficulty receiving the ballot (2%, in Table 11, column 5).  Just over 1% reported difficulty in reading the ballot, which, not surprisingly, was most common among voters with vision impairments (14% in Table 12, column 4).  Counting all difficulties, voters with vision impairments were clearly the most likely to have difficulty voting with a mail ballot (38%, in Table 12, column 4).  The distribution of mail voting difficulties by disability type is shown in Figure 3 below.

*Expected voting difficulties among non-voters and those using a different method*

As another way of assessing the importance of voting difficulties, the survey asked non-voters if they would expect voting difficulties if they voted either in person or using a mail ballot, and also asked in-person and mail voters if they would expect difficulties using the other method (the one they did not use).  As shown in Table 13, non-voters with disabilities were significantly more likely than non-voters without disabilities to expect problems if they were to try to vote.  Among people with disabilities who did not vote this year, about one-fourth (28%) would expect difficulties voting in person, and one-seventh (13%) would expect difficulties voting by mail.  Among people with disabilities who voted by mail, about two-fifths (39%) would expect difficulties voting in person, while among those voting in person, about one-ninth (12%) would expect difficulties in voting by mail.  These numbers for expected problems in voting in person or by mail are higher than the actual difficulty rates reported in Table 6, possibly reflecting a) more limiting disabilities that create greater difficulties among those not using a particular method, b) greater anxiety about expected difficulties among those not voting with a particular method, or c) or a tendency to justify one’s decision not to vote by reporting expected difficulties.

## E.  Perceived Ease or Difficulty of Voting

**The perceived difficulty of voting was similar in both 2020 and 2022 between voters with and without disabilities, except that voters who need help in daily activities were less likely than those without disabilities to say that voting was easy in 2022 (Tables 14 and 15).**

Both the 2020 and 2022 surveys asked voters for their overall assessment of the voting experience, using the question, “Overall, how easy or difficult was your experience in voting at the polling place/by mail or drop box?"  The answers were similar between people with and without disabilities in both years (Table 14).  

When broken down by type of disability, people who need help with daily activities were less likely than people without disabilities to say that voting in person or by mail in 2022 was easy, and people with cognitive impairments were less likely than people without disabilities to say that voting by mail was easy (Table 15, columns 5 and 8). 

## 

## F.  Voting Difficulty by Race and Ethnicity

**Voting difficulties and average wait times for in-person voting were especially high among Hispanic/Latino voters with disabilities.  Reported voting difficulties were also higher among Black and White non-Hispanic people with disabilities relative to people without disabilities in those groups.  However, perceptions of the ease or difficulty of voting did not differ by disability status within these groups.  The comparisons are limited by small sample sizes (Table 16).**

Hispanic/Latino voters with disabilities reported the highest rates of voting difficulties, relative both to Hispanic/Latino voters without disabilities and to Black and White non-Hispanic voters with and without disabilities.  They also had the highest average wait time among all groups for in-person voting (37.4 minutes compared to 27.5 minutes for Hispanic/Latino voters without disabilities).  Black non-Hispanic voters with disabilities reported an average of 25.2 minutes waiting at a polling place compared to only 12.7 minutes among Black non-Hispanic voters without disabilities and 11.3 minutes among White non-Hispanic voters with disabilities.  The average wait time among White non-Hispanic voters without disabilities was 16.2 minutes, indicating that any preference people with disabilities received in moving to the front of the line was most common among White non-Hispanic voters.  The differences in wait times between voters with and without disabilities in each group were within the margins of error.

Given the limited samples when broken down by disability, race, and ethnicity, these results should be treated as exploratory information on the voting experiences of people with disabilities by race and ethnicity. 

G.  Need for Assistance in Voting

**The percent of in-person voters with disabilities needing assistance increased between 2020 and 2022 from 6% to 11% and stayed stable among mail voters with disabilities at 11%. Election officials were most likely to assist in-person voters, and family members were most likely to assist those voting by mail (Tables 17 and 18).**

While our previous report found that the percent of people with disabilities needing assistance in voting in person dropped markedly from 2012 to 2020 (30% to 6%), the 2022 rate rebounded somewhat to 11% (columns 2 and 5, Table 17).  

Among those needing assistance at a polling place in 2022, election officials were the most likely to provide such help for voters both with and without disabilities (66% and 72%, respectively), though close to one-fourth of voters with disabilities relied on either a family member (19%) or friend (6%) (Table 17, columns 4 and 5).

The percent of voters with disabilities using mail ballots who needed assistance stayed stable from 2020 to 2022 at close to 11%, with 6% needing assistance in completing the ballot and 10% needing assistance in returning the ballot in 2022 (Table 17, column 5).  Family members were the most likely to provide such assistance (34%), while one-fifth (21%) relied on friends or neighbors (Table 17, column 5).

When broken down by type of disability, people with vision impairments were the most likely to need assistance in voting.  About two-fifths of them needed assistance whether voting in person (39%) or with a mail ballot (42%) (Table 18, column 4).

H.  Needing Assistance or Having Difficulty

**About one-fifth of voters with disabilities in 2020 reported either needing assistance or having some type of difficulty in voting, which is twice the rate of voters without disabilities.  This included about one-fourth of in-person voters with disabilities and one-seventh of mail voters with disabilities.  The highest rate was among people with vision impairments, of whom over half reported needing assistance or having difficulty (Table 19).**

Combining the survey measures on voting difficulties and the need for assistance, we can calculate what percentage of voters either needed assistance or had difficulty (adjusting for overlap).  As shown in Figure 4 below, 20% of voters with disabilities needed assistance or had difficulty voting, compared to 6% without disabilities.  

Put another way, the number who voted independently without any difficulty was four out of five voters with disabilities (80%) compared to almost nineteen out of twenty (94%) voters without disabilities.

The likelihood of needing assistance or having difficulty was higher for people with disabilities than those without disabilities both among in-person voters (25% compared to 7%) and voters using mail ballots (14% compared to 4%).  This rate was high across all the types of disability and was especially high for voters with vision impairments (54%) or cognitive impairments (32%) (Table 19, columns 4 and 5).

## I.  Perceived Treatment by Election Officials

**Voters with disabilities were as likely as those without disabilities in 2020 and 2022 to report that election officials were “very respectful” toward them.  The highest reports on this measure in 2022 occurred among people with vision impairments (Tables 20 and 21).**

While our previous report showed a decline in the reported respectfulness of election officials toward voters both with and without disabilities between 2012 and 2020 (possibly reflecting unusually high turnout and stress in the 2020 election due in part to the pandemic), perceived respect levels increased slightly but not significantly for both groups in 2022.  Voters with disabilities were as likely as those without disabilities in 2022 to report that election officials were “very respectful” toward them. The 2022 pattern is similar across disability types, with people with vision impairments being most likely to report that election officials were “very respectful” (90%) (Table 21, column 4).

## J.  Information Sources on Voting Process

**People with and without disabilities were most likely to get information on the voting process in 2022 from printed mailings from the election office.  People with disabilities were less likely than those without disabilities to use any internet-based sources and more likely to use non-internet-based sources such as printed mailings and television for such information. Both websites and print sources of voting information were rated as less accessible by people with disabilities than by those without disabilities (Tables 22 and 23).**

Two-fifths of people with disabilities in 2022 said they received information on the voting process and where to vote from printed mailings from the election office (41%), and just over one-fourth noted that they received it from communicating with people through email or texts (29%) or television (28%) (Table 21, column 2).  

The pattern was similar between people with and without disabilities, except that people with disabilities were less likely than people without disabilities to use internet-based sources (54% compared to 66%) and more likely to use non-internet-based sources (75% compared to 64%).  This reflects the “digital divide” of lower internet access among people with disabilities, explored in our 2022 EAC report “Disability, the Voting Process, and the Digital Divide.”

Looking specifically at internet-based sources, those with disabilities were significantly less likely than those without disabilities to have used the election office website (19% compared to 29%), social media or an online community (18% compared to 22%), a news website (12% compared to 18%), or another type of website (8% compared to 11%).  Looking at non-internet-based sources, those with disabilities were significantly more likely to have used printed material from the election office (41% compared to 35%), television (28% compared to 22%), printed newspapers (18% compared to 13%), and calling the election office (7% compared to 4%).

The use of internet-based sources was especially low among those with hearing impairments (48%) or mobility impairments (47%), while the use of non-internet-based sources was especially high among those with vision impairments (84%) or needing help with daily activities (78%).

Both websites and print sources of voting information were less likely to be rated as fully accessible by people with disabilities than by people without disabilities.  Accessibility of both sources was rated lowest by people with vision or cognitive impairments.   The most common complaint for both sources was that the material had small print or was otherwise difficult to read (Table 23).

****

## K.  Confidence That Vote Was Accurately Counted

**Confidence that one’s vote was accurately counted increased among voters without disabilities from 2020 to 2022, and there was little difference in this confidence between voters with and without disabilities, or across disability types, in 2022 (Tables 24 and 25).**

In 2020 only 59% of voters without disabilities were highly confident their vote was accurately counted, which was less than the two-thirds (68%) of voters with disabilities who said this.  Confidence increased among voters without disabilities in 2022, so there was little difference between voters with and without disabilities (65% and 67%, respectively, said they were “highly confident”).  In 2022 there was little difference in such confidence between in-person and mail voters and among people with different types of disabilities.

## L.  Voter Comparisons of 2022 Voting to Pre-pandemic Experience

**Asked to compare the ease or difficulty of voting in 2022 with the last time they voted before the pandemic, two-thirds of voters with and without disabilities said it was about the same. Reports that voting was easier in 2022 were more common than reports that it was more difficult.  This was especially true among those who voted by mail in 2022 and in person before the pandemic, but it was also true among those who voted in person both times (Table 26).**

We asked for voters’ subjective impressions of voting compared to the last time they voted before the pandemic.  Overall about one-fourth said it was somewhat or much easier (25% of voters with disabilities and 24% of voters without disabilities), while similar numbers said it was “about the same” (69% and 70%) and 6% of each group said it was more difficult.  Over half of those who voted by mail in 2022 but in person before the pandemic noted that voting was easier this year (60% of voters without disabilities and 54% of voters with disabilities).

## M.  Preference for How to Vote in Next Election

**Just under half of people with disabilities, and over half without disabilities, would prefer voting in a polling place in the next election.  About one-third of people with disabilities would prefer voting by mail, while a combined one-sixth would prefer voting by other methods (Table 27).**

Both 2022 voters and non-voters were asked, “If you wanted to vote in the next election, how would you prefer to cast your vote?”  Five options were presented to the respondents, and the options were randomly rotated to avoid any bias from the order of the options.  The most popular option was voting in person inside a polling place, chosen by close to half (47%) of people with disabilities and over half (56%) of people without disabilities.  The next most popular option was receiving and sending a ballot by mail or drop box, chosen by one-third (34%) of people with disabilities and one-fourth (25%) of people without disabilities.  Choices among the remaining three options did not differ significantly by disability status:  about one-seventh (13-16%) chose voting fully online by personal computer or smartphone, 3-4% chose filling out a ballot online and then printing and mailing it, and 2-3% chose voting by drive through or curbside.

Comparing the preferences of 2022 voters and non-voters, in-person voting was most popular among both groups, except that non-voters without disabilities slightly preferred voting entirely online (37%).  The relatively new option of filling out a ballot online and then printing it out and mailing it has promise for enabling people with vision impairments to vote confidentially at home.  It was chosen by 9% of people with vision impairments, an increase over the 5% who chose this in the 2020 survey.

## N.  Non-voting Political Participation

**Participation in non-voting political activities did not change significantly between 2020 and 2022 among people with and without disabilities, except that contributions to a political party or group declined among both groups.  There were no general differences between people with and without disabilities, or by disability type, except that people with cognitive impairments were less likely than those without disabilities to engage in non-voting political activities in 2022 (Tables 28 and 29).**

In addition to measuring voting, the survey measured several types of non-voting political activities, such as contributing to or working for a political candidate.  Just under half of people with and without disabilities (44% and 47%, respectively) engaged in at least one of the eight activities measured in 2022 (Table 28, columns 4 and 5).  People with cognitive impairments were the least likely to engage in one or more of the activities (38%) (Table 29, column 5).

Apart from the clearly political activities, 5% of people with disabilities in 2022 reported having “worked to change a private organization’s policies or practices affecting people with disabilities, such as through talking to business owners or filing lawsuits.” 

## **O.  Political Interest and Perceptions of Political Efficacy**

**While people with disabilities were more likely than those without disabilities in 2020 to say they follow politics, the reported interest among people without disabilities increased in 2022 so that this disability gap mostly closed.  In 2020 people with disabilities reported lower perceived ability to participate in politics and lower perceived responsiveness of the political system, but these disability gaps also narrowed in 2022.  Perceptions of the influence and respect of people with disabilities in politics are similar between people with and without disabilities in 2022.**

Just under half (48%) of people with disabilities said they follow politics “most of the time” in 2022, slightly higher than among people without disabilities (44%) (Table 30, columns 4 and 5).  This percentage was highest among those with mobility impairments (51%) and hearing impairments (50%) (Table 31, columns 3 and 6).

Perceptions of one’s political competence (“internal efficacy”) and the responsiveness of the political system (“external efficacy”) have both been found to strongly influence political participation.  Past research has found people with disabilities to have lower average scores on both measures, helping to account for their lower voter turnout.[footnoteRef:6]  Using standard measures of internal and external efficacy, this survey finds that people with disabilities had lower average scores on both measures in 2020, and the disability gaps closed somewhat so that they were within the margin of error in 2022 (Table 30, columns 3 and 6).   [6:  Lisa Schur, Todd Shields, and Kay Schriner, “Can I Make A Difference?  Efficacy, Employment, and Disability,” Political Psychology, Vol. 24, No. 1, March 2003, pp. 119-149; Lisa Schur, Todd Shields, Douglas Kruse, and Kay Schriner, “Enabling Democracy: Disability and Voter Turnout,” Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 1, March 2002, pp. 167-190.] 

The survey also asked specifically about the perceived influence of, and respect for, people with disabilities in politics.  People both with and without disabilities reported similar views on these measures in both 2020 and 2022 (Table 30, columns 7 and 8), and the views did not vary significantly by disability type (Table 31).

## **P.  Recruitment for Voting**

**Despite their greater social isolation, people with and without disabilities were equally likely to have someone talk to them about registering to vote or getting out to vote in both 2020 and 2022 (Tables 32 and 33).**

Having someone talk to you about voting strongly predicts voter turnout.  While people with disabilities are more socially isolated in general, they were equally likely in both years to report that someone talked to them about registering or getting out to vote (close to 40% among both groups in both years) (Table 32, columns 1, 2, 4 and 5).  

People with vision and mobility impairments were the least likely to report being recruited for voting in 2022 (33% and 36%, respectively) (Table 33, columns 4 and 6).

Not surprisingly, the low employment levels of people with disabilities led to especially low rates of being recruited for voting by co-workers (Table 32).

## **Q.  Other Facilitators of Political Participation**

**The political participation of people with disabilities is constrained by their lower access to personal vehicles for transportation, and lower employment, income, and education levels.  They are, however, equally likely as people without disabilities to meet regularly with groups and more likely to attend religious services every week (Tables 34 and 35).**

Transportation access, social connections, and economic and educational resources shape political participation.  People with disabilities are less likely than those without disabilities to have a car they can drive (71% compared to 91%) or to use their own or a family vehicle (79% compared to 90%) (Table 34, columns 1 and 2). Their transportation needs are disproportionately met by someone else’s vehicle, taxi or rideshare, or para-transit.  They are similar to people without disabilities in their reports of transportation problems, except that people with cognitive impairments are less likely to say that they “never or rarely” have transportation problems (43% compared to 48% among people without disabilities).

Looking at other facilitators of participation, employment can provide both economic resources and social connections that encourage participation.  People with disabilities have much lower employment levels than people without disabilities in 2020 (22% compared to 61%) (Table 35, columns 1 and 2).  Also consistent with other data sources, they have lower average income levels and are less likely to have Bachelor’s or graduate degrees.  

People with disabilities do not appear to face gaps, however, in other measures of social connections:  about one-third of people both with and without disabilities report meeting regularly with any groups or organizations (33% and 39% respectively), and people with disabilities are about as likely to say they attend religious services every week (20% compared to 21%) (Table 35, columns 1 and 2).

In follow-up research, we will use these data to examine how these and other facilitators help to shape voting and other political participation among people with and without disabilities.

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# 3.  Conclusion

The results show that the significant progress in voting accessibility since 2012 (documented in our earlier 2020 report) has largely been sustained in 2022.  This reflects well on the efforts of the EAC, election officials, policy-makers, and disability organizations.  Nevertheless, voting difficulties increased slightly among voters with disabilities from 2020 to 2022, and they remain significantly more likely than those without disabilities to experience voting difficulties, indicating that more work needs to be done to improve accessibility.  We are glad to answer any questions or provide clarification on these results.  We look forward to working with the EAC to make these results as useful as possible.

# Appendix:  Survey Questions to Identify Disability

 Note:  The first six questions are used by the Census Bureau in the American Community Survey and Current Population Survey.  The seventh question was designed for the 2012 and 2020 disability and voting accessibility surveys to capture other types of disability.  A “yes” response to any of these questions qualifies a respondent as having a disability.

1.  Are you deaf or have serious difficulty hearing?

2.  Are you blind or have serious difficulty seeing even when wearing glasses?

3.  Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, do you have serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions?

4.  Do you have serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs?

5.  Do you have difficulty dressing or bathing?

6.  Because of a physical, mental, or emotional condition, do you have difficulty doing errands alone such as visiting a doctor’s office or shopping?

7.  Do you have a long-term health problem or impairment that limits the kind or amount of work, housework, or other activities you can do?

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Figure 1: Difficulties in Voting Across All Methods, 2020 and 2022

Figure 2: Any Difficulty Voting in Person by Disability Type, 2022

Figure 3: Any Difficulty Voting with Mail Ballot by Disability Type, 2022

Figure 4:  Needing Assistance or Having Difficulty in Voting, 2022

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