Tuesday, November 7^th is Election Day in the United States. Citizens with and without disabilities will visit their polling places to cast ballots for local and state representation, as well as Congressional representation. According to the US Election Assistance Commission, more than 35 million Americans with disabilities are eligible to vote. Laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) protect their right to vote in local and national elections.

We gathered resources from the NIDILRR grantee community and elsewhere to help people with disabilities understand and advocate for their right to vote, which is an important aspect of community participation. We’ve also shared resources for election officials and community organizations to ensure that everyone has full access to ballots and polling places.

• Voting Tips for People Living with TBI, a factsheet published by the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center in collaboration with the Indiana TBI Model System Center, covers voters’ rights and responsibilities and information to help them plan for and cast their vote. The factsheet is also available in Spanish.
• Accessible Voting Places, a course from the Rocky Mountain ADA Regional Center, provides an overview of many of the laws covering accessible voting, common barriers to voting, and physical requirements for accessible voting places. In addition, this training offers effective solutions that can be used to make polling places accessible on voting day. Election officials and voters alike will benefit from an understanding of this information.
• Exercising the Right to Vote: Fall 2020 and Mental Health and Wellness Through Civic Participation are resources from the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Community Living and Participation of Individuals with Psychiatric Disabilities to help people with serious mental illness understand their rights and engage in the election process.
• Help America Vote Act (HAVA) (PDF), a factsheet from the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Promoting Interventions for Community Living, educates voters with disabilities about their rights and how to advocate for access to voting in their community.
• The ADA National Network Regional Centers have hosted several voting-related events in recent years:
  • The Right to Vote: Access for People with Disabilities provided information on laws applying to voting including the requirements of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and what steps folks can take if barriers are encountered on Election Day.
  • Accessible Voting in the COVID-19 Era covered several accessibility issues related to voter registration, mail-in ballots, absentee voting, and casting a vote in-person; communication and outreach regarding the voting process, policies, and procedures; best practices for poll workers to assist voters with disabilities.
  • Overview and Replication of the Tennessee Train-the-Trainer Workshop on the ADA and Voting covered a new train-the-trainer program to educate voters with disabilities and election officials on voting rights, barriers to voting, and their rights and responsibilities under the ADA and HAVA.
  • Voters with disabilities, advocates, and election officials may contact their regional ADA National Network Center for information and assistance in access to voting in their communities by call 800/949-4ADA (4232) or visiting https://adata.org/find-your-region.
• Elsewhere in the community, we suggest visiting these resources:
  • Voting Resources for Older Americans and People with Disabilities from ACL.gov.
  • Voting Accessibility, including best practices, from the Election Assistance Commission.
  • Voting from the ADA.gov.
  • Voter Accessibility Laws from USA.gov.

Are you a person with a disability interested in voting? Contact our information specialists for assistance in connecting to voting assistance in your community.