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NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — A new report from Rutgers University estimates that about 40.2 million eligible voters in the quickly approaching U.S. presidential election are disabled.
Voters and advocates say the hurdles that make people feel excluded from the electoral process aren't being addressed. That ranges from inaccessible campaign materials to former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris seldomly mentioning how issues like COVID-19 impact the disability community.
"They should be treating us like we're their path to victory because we are, frankly," said Dom Kelly, the founder and CEO of New Disabled South, an advocacy group that focuses on disability rights in the South. "You win or lose because of disabled people, and if you don't take our community seriously, that will reflect on the outcome of your campaign."
Lisa Schur and her husband Doug Kruse lead the Program for Disabilities Research at Rutgers and co-wrote the new report, which also shows there are 7.1 million disabled voters in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Schur said that disabled people are less likely to receive information about politics and can face numerous difficulties when voting in-person and by mail. All of it can lead to less participation.
"It's kind of like death by a thousand cuts," Schur said.
In 2015, when Trump first ran for office, he flailed his arms in an apparent attempt to mock a disabled journalist. At a September rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, the former president falsely claimed Harris was "mentally impaired." The American Association of People with Disabilities condemned Trump's words as ableist and "harmful to people with disabilities."
Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Trump is "committed to making sure every voter, including voters with disabilities, can exercise their right to vote in the most important election of our lifetime."
'Are they doing the basics?'
There's more to engaging disabled voters, said Meighan Stone, who uses a wheelchair due to symptoms of long COVID.
"The focus on ableist jokes or whether or not disabled people are visibly at campaign events reduces disabled people to one thing," Stone said. "That's a level of discrimination we live with every day."
Stone would like to see both candidates focus on solving how long it takes to get disability benefits — about six to eight months, according to the federal government — and getting the Food and Drug Administration to approve a treatment for long COVID, saying, "I think both campaigns want to act as if they solved a pandemic and it's over."
The Harris campaign recently hired Anastasia Somoza as its disability engagement director. Somoza, who has cerebral palsy and uses a motorized wheelchair, said the Harris campaign will host an event with disabled entrepreneurs in Pittsburgh on Monday. Somoza also said she tries to make sure there's a virtual option for all campaign events.
In 2023, the vice president met with leaders in the disability space about transportation issues, and she has proposed paying for home care with Medicare and eliminating subminimum wage for disabled workers.
But the two presidential campaigns could do more, said Holly Latham at #MEAction, which advocates for people with chronic fatigue syndrome. She said ads, fliers and events need to be accessible to all disabled people.
"Are they doing the basics? Are they providing alt-text (a written description of an image)?" Latham said. "Are they making sure they have interpreters for sign language and stuff like that?"
Disabled Folks for Kamala, a coalition of advocates, said a virtual Harris campaign event for disabled voters on Oct. 8 "did not meet the basic access requirements." Marissa Ditkowsky, who has a form of muscular dystrophy, watched the event and said she was frustrated by the issues.
The Harris campaign said it "deeply regrets" the technical difficulties. A human wasn't transcribing the closed captioning, and a sign language interpreter wasn't visible at the beginning of the event.
"We want people to be thinking about us while they're creating these spaces instead of coming around after the fact," said Ditkowsky, who calls Harris the "clear choice" in the presidential race.
'That interaction matters'
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission is currently working with election officials to ensure that every American that's eligible to vote can do so independently, privately and without restrictions, Commissioner Benjamin Hovland said.
He acknowledged the increasing need for more focused and adequate training on disabilities for election officials and poll workers — especially for things like anxiety or different ways of processing information — in hopes of setting up more accommodating polling places.
"No matter what it is or who someone is voting for, If somebody needs assistance, as a poll worker — which I say is the customer service face of our democracy — it's your job to make sure that they can get through the process privately and independently and feel great about that," Hovland said. "Give them the 'I voted' sticker and thank them. Just think about how that interaction matters."
Patti Chang, 61, is blind and lives in Chicago. She said this feeling of exclusion that she and other people who live with disabilities encounter isn't just found in politics.
"Until the society has higher expectations for people with disabilities and until society itself is more inclusive," she said, "you're going to see this not just in voting, but in almost everything you encounter."
Contributing: Kasturi Pananjady
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Associated Press' coverage of race and voting receives support from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation.
