One in five in-person voters with a disability (19.9%) reported difficulty voting at a polling place or election office in 2022, more than three times the 6.1% rate among voters without disabilities (U.S. Election Assistance Commission and Rutgers University, Disability and Voting Accessibility in the 2022 Elections). That gap persists more than two decades after the Help America Vote Act required an accessible voting system in every polling place. The most recent federal field audit found that 65% of examined polling places had an accessible voting station that could impede a private and independent vote (GAO-18-4), while a projected 40.2 million Americans with disabilities were eligible to vote in 2024 (Rutgers Program for Disability Research, 2024). We aggregated data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Rutgers University’s Program for Disability Research, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the U.S. Census Bureau, the CDC, and Elections Canada. For the broader picture of how disability shapes access to work and digital services, see our roundups on disability employment statistics and web accessibility statistics.
TL;DR
- 40.2 million eligible voters with disabilities were projected for November 2024, close to one-sixth of the electorate (Rutgers, Disability Electorate Projections 2024).
- 72.7 million eligible voters either have a disability or live with someone who does, almost one-third of the electorate (Rutgers, 2024).
- 61.8% of people with disabilities voted in 2020 versus 67.5% without, a 5.7 point gap (Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout 2020).
- About 1.75 million more people would have voted in 2020 if people with disabilities voted at the rate of demographically similar peers (Rutgers, 2020).
- 14.0% of voters with disabilities reported a voting difficulty in 2022, versus 4% of voters without disabilities (EAC and Rutgers, 2024 HAVA report).
- Reported difficulties fell from 26.1% in 2012 to 11.4% in 2020, then ticked back up to 14.0% in 2022 (EAC and Rutgers, 2024).
- 39.5% of voters with vision impairments had trouble reading or seeing the ballot in 2022 (EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report).
- In-person voters with disabilities needing assistance rose from 6% in 2020 to 11% in 2022 (EAC and Rutgers, 2022).
- 65% of 137 polling places GAO fully examined in 2016 had an accessible voting station that could impede a private and independent vote (GAO-18-4).
- Only 16% of polling places had no potential impediments to access in 2000 (GAO-09-941).
- 4 of 92 EAC-certified voting systems meet the VVSG 2.0 standard (EAC Certified Voting Systems list, 2026).
- Just over half of US states permitted curbside voting in 2024 (EAC, 2024 EAVS Comprehensive Report).
1. The Disability Electorate: Bigger Than Most Swing Blocs
A projected 40.2 million people with disabilities were eligible to vote in November 2024, close to one-sixth of the total electorate (Rutgers, Disability Electorate Projections, October 2024). That is not a niche constituency. It grew 5.1% since 2020, twice the 2.5% growth among eligible voters without disabilities, which means accessibility demand at the polls is rising faster than the electorate itself.
The age profile undercuts the assumption that accessible voting is a senior-citizen issue: 19.2 million eligible voters with disabilities are under 65, nearly as many as the 21.0 million aged 65 or older. And the disability mix matters for equipment design. Mobility impairments (22.1 million) drive ramp, parking and curbside demand, while cognitive (14.4 million), hearing (11.9 million) and vision (7.2 million) impairments drive ballot interface, audio and language-simplicity requirements.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Eligible voters with disabilities, Nov 2024 | 40.2 million (close to one-sixth of electorate) | Rutgers, Disability Electorate Projections 2024 |
| Growth since 2020 | 5.1% (vs 2.5% for eligible voters without disabilities) | Rutgers, Disability Electorate Projections 2024 |
| Eligible voters with a disability or a household member with one | 72.7 million (almost one-third of electorate) | Rutgers, Disability Electorate Projections 2024 |
| Eligible voters with mobility / cognitive impairments | 22.1 million / 14.4 million | Rutgers, Disability Electorate Projections 2024 |
| Eligible voters with hearing / visual impairments | 11.9 million / 7.2 million | Rutgers, Disability Electorate Projections 2024 |
| Eligible voters with disabilities under 65 / 65 and older | 19.2 million / 21.0 million | Rutgers, Disability Electorate Projections 2024 |
| Eligible voters with disabilities in 7 battleground states | 7.1 million (16.8% of 35.0 million) | Rutgers, Disability Electorate Projections 2024 |
| US adults with any disability | More than 1 in 4 | CDC, Disability Impacts All of Us (DHDS) |
Context note: the CDC figure counts all US adults, not only eligible voters, and uses its own survey-based disability definition, so it is not directly comparable to the Rutgers eligible-voter projection. CDC’s Disability Impacts All of Us breakdown lists cognition (13.9%), mobility (12.2%), hearing (6.2%) and vision (5.5%) disabilities among US adults.
2. The Turnout Gap: Narrowing, Not Closed
If people with disabilities had voted in 2020 at the same rate as demographically similar people without disabilities, there would have been about 1.75 million more voters (Rutgers, Fact Sheet on Disability and Voter Turnout in 2020). That counterfactual reframes accessibility from a compliance checkbox into a question of whose votes are counted at all.
The long-run trend is real progress. In 2000, before HAVA, turnout among people with disabilities was 16.8% lower than among people without disabilities; by the 2022 midterms the raw Census-based gap had shrunk to 1.5 points (Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout in the 2022 Elections). But the gap is not uniform: in 2022, turnout was 59.4% among people with hearing impairments yet 38.3% among those with cognitive impairments.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Turnout, people with / without disabilities, 2020 | 61.8% / 67.5% (5.7 point gap) | Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout 2020 |
| People with disabilities who voted, 2020 | 17.7 million | Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout 2020 |
| Turnout, people with / without disabilities, 2022 | 50.8% / 52.4% (1.5 point gap) | Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout 2022 |
| Citizens with disabilities who voted, 2022 | 15.8 million (of 31.1 million eligible) | Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout 2022 |
| Turnout gap, 2018 vs 2022 midterms | -4.8 points to -1.5 points | Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout 2022 |
| Turnout by type, 2022: hearing / cognitive impairment | 59.4% / 38.3% | Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout 2022 |
| Turnout gap in 2000 (pre-HAVA) | 16.8% lower for people with disabilities | EAC and Rutgers, Voting Experiences Since HAVA 2024 |
| Adjusted midterm gap, 1998 vs 2022 | -15.8% vs -8.3% | EAC and Rutgers, Voting Experiences Since HAVA 2024 |
Outlier note: the 2024 EAC and Rutgers HAVA retrospective uses an adjusted method based on respondents matched to election records, which produces larger gaps (-8.3% in 2022) than the raw Census self-report gap (-1.5 points). Both are valid; they answer different questions. Overall 2024 turnout was 65.3% of the citizen voting-age population, or 154 million people (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 CPS Voting and Registration Supplement), but a disability breakdown of 2024 turnout from Rutgers had not been published when we checked.
3. Voting Difficulties: The Post-2020 Backslide
The share of voters with disabilities reporting any voting difficulty fell from 26.1% in 2012 to 11.4% in 2020, then rose to 14.0% in 2022 (EAC and Rutgers, Voting Experiences Since HAVA, 2024). The 2020 dip coincided with an unprecedented shift to mail and early voting during the pandemic; as more voters returned to polling places, the in-person barriers came back with them.
The in-person numbers are the clearest signal. Difficulty at polling places or election offices dropped from 30.1% of voters with disabilities in 2012 to 18.0% in 2020, then climbed to 19.9% in 2022. Among in-person voters with vision impairments, 52.5% reported a difficulty in 2022, and among those with cognitive impairments, 27.7%. Those two groups are exactly the ones accessible ballot-marking devices are supposed to serve.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Any voting difficulty, voters with disabilities: 2012 / 2020 / 2022 | 26.1% / 11.4% / 14.0% | EAC and Rutgers, Voting Experiences Since HAVA 2024 |
| Any voting difficulty, voters without disabilities, 2022 | 4% | EAC and Rutgers, Voting Experiences Since HAVA 2024 |
| In-person difficulty, voters with disabilities: 2012 / 2020 / 2022 | 30.1% / 18.0% / 19.9% | EAC and Rutgers, Voting Experiences Since HAVA 2024 |
| In-person difficulty, voters without disabilities, 2020 / 2022 | 10% / 6.1% | EAC and Rutgers, 2020 and 2022 Elections reports |
| In-person difficulty, 2022: vision / cognitive impairment | 52.5% / 27.7% | EAC and Rutgers, Voting Experiences Since HAVA 2024 |
| Voters with disabilities who needed assistance or had difficulty, 2022 | 1 in 5 (three times the rate without disabilities) | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections One-Pager |
| Estimated voters with disabilities who had a difficulty, 2020 | 1.95 million | Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout 2020 |
Context note: the 2022 EAC one-pager rounds the in-person rates to 20% and 6%. The underlying 2022 survey had 2,001 respondents (1,198 citizens with disabilities and 803 without), conducted by SSRS; the 2020 survey had 2,569 respondents.
4. Inside the Polling Place: Lines, Ballots and Equipment
Among voters with vision impairments, 39.5% had difficulty reading or seeing the ballot in 2022 (Rutgers and EAC, Disability and Voting Accessibility in the 2022 Elections). That is the single statistic most directly about voting machines: it measures whether the ballot interface, including audio and magnification on accessible devices, did its job. For roughly two in five blind or low-vision voters, it did not.
The breakdown also shows that physical access is no longer the main barrier. Waiting in line (7.4%) beat getting inside the building (2.2%) as a problem for voters with disabilities, and difficulty understanding how to use the voting equipment (4.6%) was twice the rate of voters without disabilities. Assistance needs nearly doubled between 2020 and 2022, and election officials, not friends or family, provided most of that help. Accessible audio and text-to-speech design, the same technology tracked in our speech synthesis accessibility statistics, sits at the center of this problem.
| Metric | Value (with disabilities vs without) | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Difficulty waiting in line | 7.4% vs 1.6% | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report |
| Difficulty reading or seeing the ballot | 5.9% vs 0.5% | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report |
| Difficulty understanding how to vote or use voting equipment | 4.6% vs 2.2% | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report |
| Difficulty writing on the ballot | 2.5% vs 0% | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report |
| Difficulty getting inside the polling place | 2.2% vs 0.2% | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report |
| Difficulty communicating with poll workers | 1.9% vs 1.0% | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report |
| In-person voters with disabilities needing assistance, 2020 vs 2022 | 6% vs 11% | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report |
| Help provided by election officials (with / without disabilities) | 66% / 72% of those assisted | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report |
Context note: treatment is not the problem. 85.6% of voters with disabilities rated election officials ‘very respectful’ in 2022, and 64.5% were highly confident their votes were counted accurately, versus 67.4% of voters without disabilities. About two-fifths of voters with vision impairments needed assistance whether voting in person (39%) or by mail (42%).
5. Polling Place Physical Accessibility: What GAO Audits Found
Only 16% of polling places had no potential impediments to access for people with disabilities in 2000 (GAO-09-941). GAO’s field audits are the only nationally designed, on-site inspections of polling places, and they track a slow climb: by 2008, after examining 730 randomly selected polling places on Election Day, GAO found 27% had no potential impediments on the path from parking to the voting area.
The 2016 audit is the uncomfortable one. 65% of the 137 polling places where GAO could fully examine voting stations had an accessible voting system that could impede a private and independent vote, worse than the 46% GAO found in 2008 (GAO-18-4). The 2016 sample was nongeneralizable (178 polling places), so the two figures are not a strict trend, but they show that having an accessible machine on site is not the same as having one that works for a voter alone and in private. Common outside problems included steep ramps, missing signage for accessible paths and poor parking or path surfaces.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Polling places with no potential impediments, 2000 | 16% | GAO-09-941 (2009) |
| Polling places with no impediments from parking to voting area, 2008 | 27% (of 730 sampled) | GAO-13-538SP, citing 2008 audit |
| Polling places with impediments but offering curbside voting, 2008 | 45% | GAO-13-538SP, citing 2008 audit |
| Polling places with impediments and no curbside voting, 2008 | 27% | GAO-13-538SP, citing 2008 audit |
| Polling places with an accessible voting system that could pose a challenge, 2008 | 46% | GAO-13-538SP, citing 2008 audit |
| Polling places with 1+ potential impediments outside voting area, 2016 | 60% (107 of 178) | GAO-18-4 (2017) |
| Polling places with an accessible voting station that could impede private, independent voting, 2016 | 65% (89 of 137) | GAO-18-4 (2017) |
| States with polling place accessibility standards / oversight activity, 2016 | 44 / 48 | GAO-18-4 (2017) |
Most recent available data: GAO-18-4 (fieldwork in 2016, published 2017). GAO has not published a newer national polling place inspection, so the 2008 findings summarized in GAO-13-538SP and the 2016 audit remain the best on-site evidence available. Following GAO-18-4, the Department of Justice reported in May 2021 that it had examined how federal accessibility requirements apply to early in-person voting and concluded no guidance changes were needed.
6. Voting Machines and Standards: VVSG 2.0 Is Still Rare
Of the 92 voting systems on the EAC’s certified list, only 4 were certified to the VVSG 2.0 standard as of October 2026 (EAC Certified Voting Systems). VVSG 2.0, unanimously adopted by EAC commissioners on February 10, 2021, is the first federal standard rewritten around modern accessibility and security expectations, and the EAC stopped accepting new submissions under the older VVSG 1.0 and 1.1 on November 15, 2023 (EAC, Voluntary Voting System Guidelines). Five years after adoption, the installed base is still overwhelmingly tested to the 2005-era guidelines.
Equipment churn is happening for security reasons rather than accessibility. 98% of election jurisdictions used equipment that marks paper ballots or creates auditable paper records in 2024, and hand counting rose to 21% of jurisdictions (EAC, 2024 EAVS Comprehensive Report). The accessibility implication is that the paper-ballot shift puts more weight on ballot-marking devices for voters who cannot mark paper by hand. For the security side of the same equipment debate, see our election security statistics.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Voting systems on EAC certified list | 92 | EAC Certified Voting Systems list, 2026 |
| Systems certified to VVSG 2.0 | 4 (Hart Verity Vanguard 1.0 and 1.1, Smartmatic VSR1 2.1, VotingWorks VxSuite 4.0) | EAC Certified Voting Systems list, 2026 |
| First VVSG 2.0 certification | July 7, 2025 (Hart Verity Vanguard 1.0) | EAC Certified Voting Systems list, 2026 |
| VVSG 2.0 adopted / older-standard submissions closed | February 10, 2021 / November 15, 2023 | EAC, Voluntary Voting System Guidelines page |
| Jurisdictions using paper ballots or auditable paper records, 2024 | 98% | EAC, EAVS 2024 One Sheet |
| States, territories and DC requiring voting system testing and certification | 93% | EAC, EAVS 2024 One Sheet |
| Jurisdictions hand counting paper ballots, 2022 vs 2024 | 17.8% vs 21% | EAC, 2024 EAVS Comprehensive Report |
| Jurisdictions using electronic poll books, 2022 vs 2024 | 35.1% vs nearly 40% | EAC, 2024 EAVS Comprehensive Report |
Context note: in EAC-commissioned focus groups (44 voters with disabilities, December 2023), participants with vision disabilities said the availability of accessible voting machines had improved over the past 20 years, with one describing independent voting on an accessible machine as being able to participate ‘like everyone else’ (EAC and Rutgers, Voting Experiences Since HAVA 2024).
7. Accommodations Beyond the Machine: Mail, Curbside, Poll Workers and Canada’s Benchmark
In 2020, just over half (52%) of voters with disabilities voted by mail before Election Day, versus 40% of voters without disabilities (Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout 2020). Voters with disabilities lean on mail voting more than other voters, but it is not barrier-free: in 2022 the mail-ballot difficulty rate was 6.1% for voters with disabilities versus 0.3% for others, a twenty-fold gap driven largely by voters with vision impairments, 14% of whom had trouble reading the mail ballot (EAC, Disability and Voting Accessibility in the 2022 Elections).
Polling place logistics matter too. The 2024 general election ran on 95,815 polling places staffed by more than 770,000 poll workers, the majority aged at least 61, and just over half of states permitted curbside voting (EAC, 2024 EAVS). Canada offers a useful comparison: in its April 2025 federal election, 84% of electors with a disability who voted said accessing their polling place was very easy, but only 51% were aware of Elections Canada’s accessibility services (Elections Canada, National Electors Study, 45th General Election). Relay and captioning services are another layer of the same accommodation stack, covered in our telecommunications relay service statistics.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Voted by mail before Election Day, with vs without disabilities, 2022 | 37% vs 28% | Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout 2022 |
| Voted at polling place on Election Day, with vs without disabilities, 2022 | 44% vs 51% | Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout 2022 |
| Mail-ballot difficulty, with vs without disabilities, 2022 | 6.1% vs 0.3% | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report |
| Voters with disabilities preferring fully online voting (2022 survey) | 13-16% | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report |
| States permitting curbside voting / vote centers, 2024 | Just over half / two-thirds | EAC, 2024 EAVS Comprehensive Report |
| Polling places / poll workers, 2024 general election | 95,815 / more than 770,000 | EAC, 2024 EAVS Comprehensive Report |
| Canadian electors with a disability aware of accessibility services, 2025 | 51% | Elections Canada, National Electors Study 2025 |
| Canadian electors with a disability satisfied with ballot-marking help received | 96% (76% very satisfied) | Elections Canada, National Electors Study 2025 |
Context note: in Canada, 8% of electors with a disability said someone assisted them in marking their ballot, and 85% of that help came from Elections Canada staff. US national figures for 2024 split voting methods as 39.6% in person on Election Day, 30.7% in person before Election Day and 29.0% by mail (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 CPS), but a 2024 split by disability status was not available in a readable published form at the time of writing.
Summary: Accessible Voting Machines and Polling Place Accessibility by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Eligible voters with disabilities, 2024 | 40.2 million | Rutgers, Disability Electorate Projections 2024 |
| Eligible voters with a disability or household member with one | 72.7 million | Rutgers, Disability Electorate Projections 2024 |
| Turnout gap, 2020 presidential | 5.7 points (61.8% vs 67.5%) | Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout 2020 |
| Additional voters if gap closed, 2020 | About 1.75 million | Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout 2020 |
| Turnout gap, 2022 midterm (raw) | 1.5 points (50.8% vs 52.4%) | Rutgers, Disability and Voter Turnout 2022 |
| Turnout gap, 2000 | 16.8% lower | EAC and Rutgers, Voting Experiences Since HAVA 2024 |
| Any voting difficulty, voters with disabilities, 2012 / 2022 | 26.1% / 14.0% | EAC and Rutgers, Voting Experiences Since HAVA 2024 |
| In-person difficulty, with vs without disabilities, 2022 | 19.9% vs 6.1% | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report |
| In-person difficulty, voters with vision impairments, 2022 | 52.5% | EAC and Rutgers, Voting Experiences Since HAVA 2024 |
| Trouble reading or seeing ballot, voters with vision impairments, 2022 | 39.5% | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report |
| In-person voters with disabilities needing assistance, 2020 vs 2022 | 6% vs 11% | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report |
| Polling places with no potential impediments, 2000 | 16% | GAO-09-941 |
| Accessible voting system could pose a challenge, 2008 | 46% of polling places | GAO-13-538SP |
| Accessible voting station could impede private, independent vote, 2016 | 65% (89 of 137) | GAO-18-4 |
| Polling places with outside impediments, 2016 | 60% (107 of 178) | GAO-18-4 |
| Voting systems certified to VVSG 2.0 | 4 of 92 | EAC Certified Voting Systems list, 2026 |
| States permitting curbside voting, 2024 | Just over half | EAC, 2024 EAVS Comprehensive Report |
| Mail-ballot difficulty, with vs without disabilities, 2022 | 6.1% vs 0.3% | EAC and Rutgers, 2022 Elections report |
| Canadian electors with a disability finding polling place access very easy, 2025 | 84% | Elections Canada, National Electors Study 2025 |
Methodology and Sources
- U.S. Election Assistance Commission and Rutgers University, Voting Experiences Since HAVA: Perspectives of People with Disabilities (2024), and the EAC voting accessibility research hub.
- U.S. Election Assistance Commission and Rutgers University, Disability and Voting Accessibility in the 2022 Elections (full text read via the Rutgers-hosted copy) and the 2022 one-pager.
- U.S. Election Assistance Commission and Rutgers University, Disability and Voting Accessibility in the 2020 Elections.
- Rutgers Program for Disability Research (Schur and Kruse), Projecting the Number of Eligible Voters with Disabilities in the November 2024 Elections, Disability and Voter Turnout in the 2022 Elections and Disability and Voter Turnout in 2020.
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-18-4: Voters with Disabilities, Observations on Polling Place Accessibility (2016 election), GAO-09-941 (2008 election) and GAO-13-538SP.
- U.S. Election Assistance Commission, 2024 Election Administration and Voting Survey Comprehensive Report and EAVS 2024 One Sheet.
- U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Certified Voting Systems and Voluntary Voting System Guidelines.
- U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 Presidential Election Voting and Registration Tables Now Available (April 2025).
- CDC, Disability Impacts All of Us (Disability and Health Data System, updated July 2024).
- Elections Canada, National Electors Study, Report on Voter Experience, 45th General Election (2025).
- Data watch: the most recent national survey of voting difficulties covers the 2022 midterms; an EAC and Rutgers survey of the 2024 election had not been published on the EAC accessibility hub when we checked, and no Rutgers 2024 turnout-by-disability fact sheet was available. The Census Bureau’s 2024 Table 6 includes disability status, but we could not read it in this cycle, so 2024 turnout by disability is omitted rather than estimated. GAO’s on-site polling place audits stop at 2016 (fieldwork) and the 2016 sample was nongeneralizable, so the 46% (2008) and 65% (2016) machine figures are not a strict trend. Turnout gaps differ by method: raw Census self-report gaps (1.5 points in 2022) are much smaller than the adjusted, record-matched gaps in the 2024 HAVA report (-8.3% in 2022). EAVS reports voting-mode shares from administrative data (35.2% early in person, 37.4% Election Day in 2024) that differ from the Census survey split (30.7% and 39.6%). The CDC disability prevalence figures use a different population and definition than the Rutgers eligible-voter projections. The UK Electoral Commission and RNIB pages could not be accessed (403/404), so UK data is not included. The VVSG 2.0 count reflects the EAC list as fetched on October 4, 2026, and changes as new systems are certified.
Last updated: October 4, 2026. We update this roundup quarterly, and the next refresh is expected when the EAC and Rutgers publish their survey of disability and voting accessibility in the 2024 elections or the 2026 midterm EAVS data.