Disability Voting News: April 2, 2025
Welcome to the first Accessible Voting Booth dispatch for April 2025. We’re going to do a deep dive on the SAVE Act and how it impacts voters with disabilities, as this legislation is coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives this week.
How the SAVE Act will Impact Voters with Disabilities
Did you think I’d take a break from talking about documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) soon? Nope. This week, the House of Representatives will be voting on H.R. 22, the SAVE (Safeguard American Voting Eligibility) Act. If you’re new here, I’ve discussed the threat of DPOC in every issue of The Accessible Voting Booth so far–including state legislation to implement DPOC, Trump’s Executive Order attempting to implement a national requirement for DPOC, and the SAVE Act, which is Congressional Republicans’ attempt to require DPOC for all elections. Prior to the start of this newsletter, I wrote about how the SAVE Act threatens access for millions of voters, including voters with disabilities. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I’m going to share that and expand on it, as I’m not constrained by LinkedIn character limits.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act (H.R. 22) is a threat to American democracy, and it will create significant barriers to voter registration for millions of voters with disabilities. Let's talk about it:
The SAVE Act, if passed, would require Americans to provide citizenship documents to register or re-register to vote. There are already existing penalties in place to prevent non-US citizens from registering to vote, and non-citizen voting is exceptionally rare. The SAVE Act would disproportionately impact Americans who do not have the "appropriate" citizenship documents. Married people and trans people who have changed their names and rural voters are most likely to have difficulty obtaining the necessary citizenship documents to fulfill the requirements set by the SAVE Act. Additionally, we know that voter ID laws disproportionately impact voters of color, young people, and poor people–these groups would continue to be disproportionately impacted by DPOC requirements that are even more stringent than existing voter ID laws.
A driver’s license or REAL ID would not be considered sufficient proof of citizenship to register to vote, and voters would need to use documents such as a U.S. passport or birth certificate to register to vote. As many as 69 million married women who have taken their spouse’s name do not have a birth certificate matching their legal name and 140 million Americans don’t have a passport.
How would the SAVE Act impact people with disabilities?
1. The SAVE Act would require applicants who register by mail to vote to present their documentation in person at an election office. While election offices are required to be accessible to people with disabilities under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we know that compliance with the ADA is lacking, including for government buildings. While I don’t know of any data examining the accessibility of election offices or government buildings, we know that the majority of polling places, which are required to be accessible to voters with disabilities, are not fully accessible as found in both national and local audits. People with disabilities who show up at inaccessible election offices may not be able to register to vote because they may not be able to physically get into the election office.
Currently, millions of Americans with disabilities vote by mail because they face barriers to voting in person, and these voters likely register by mail or online to vote. Beyond facing inaccessibility in the polling place, they may have physical- or energy-limiting disabilities or difficulty accessing transportation. Voters who vote by mail due to their disability may also find it difficult or impossible to show up in person to present their documentation.
2. It is unclear whether this requirement to present documentation in person will apply to online registration. If not, voters may be required to upload documentation on voter registration portals, most of which are not fully accessible. A 2024 study found that less than a third of 43 online state voter registration websites are fully accessible to voters with disabilities. Requiring voters to upload documents in already inaccessible voter registration portals will create additional barriers, particularly if states don’t ensure that the mechanisms for uploading the documentation are accessible. Of course, if voters who register online are required to provide documentation in person, they will run into the access barriers I described above.
3. Obtaining the required proof of citizenship may be inaccessible to voters with disabilities. It is costly, requires navigating complicated bureaucratic processes, and takes time. We know that these barriers already impact disabled voters' ability to obtain voter ID: a study by the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement found that “20% of people who have self-identified as having a disability do not have a driver’s license, while an additional 9% have a license without their current name or address, as compared to 6% of nondisabled people who do not have a license and an additional 13% who have a license but without their current name or address.” I cannot find data on how many disabled people have access to passports or updated birth certificates, but we must consider that disabled people may experience administrative hurdles to accessing these documents, such as inaccessible processes for obtaining passports or birth certificates. Additionally, as the poverty rate for adults with disabilities is 27% as compared to 12% for adults without disabilities, disabled people may be less likely to have a passport due to the cost of travel, and they may have a harder time affording the $130 passport fee.
4. We know that rural voters are going to be disproportionately impacted by the SAVE Act, as they will experience greater barriers to traveling to an election office. Disabled people living in rural areas will have a particularly challenging time. 18.6 million Americans have reported having a travel-limiting disability that may hinder or prevent them from showing up at an election office. Paratransit and accessible public transit are not available nationwide. The cost of obtaining accessible private transportation such as accessible vans or modifications for cars and vans can be extremely high. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the cost of a new adapted vehicle can be around $80,000, while various individual adjustments and modifications can cost anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars. Wheelchair-accessible vans can cost between $100,000 and $200,000. Even major cities’ taxi companies fall short of meeting accessibility requirements, and rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft have been sued numerous times by disabled riders who have experienced discrimination, from service denials for wheelchair users to discrimination for traveling with service animals. If the SAVE Act passes, some disabled voters may be disenfranchised because they literally cannot travel to an election office to register to vote.
The bottom line: The financial and administrative burdens of the SAVE Act, along with rampant access barriers, will make it much more difficult or impossible for millions of disabled Americans to vote.
So what can you do? Call your Representative this week and demand that they vote no on the SAVE Act. You can also email your Representatives, and Nonprofit Vote has email templates to share with your network about the SAVE Act.
Share Your Voting Story with The Center for American Progress
The Center for American Progress (CAP) Disability Justice Initiative (DJI) is seeking to understand disabled people’s voting experiences. They are looking for disabled people who are willing to share about the accessibility of their voting experiences via a brief Zoom or written interview. They would particularly like to speak to disabled voters from California, Hawaii, Indiana, Missouri, Texas, Utah, or Wyoming. Sign up to share your voting story with CAP.
State Updates
For state-level updates, I encourage you to read this week’s The Markup from the Voting Rights Lab. Here are a few top lines from The Markup this week that will impact voters with disabilities:
Virginia extended its voter registration deadline from 21 days to 10 days before an election.
Missouri’s House unanimously passed H.B. 617, which would restore voting rights to persons on probation or parole for a felony conviction. As disabled people are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, this legislation will benefit voters with disabilities who have been incarcerated.
Utah’s governor signed H.B. 300, ending universal mail voting. This bill will take effect in 2027 and voters will have to submit an application every eight years to continue to receive mail ballots.
Kansas’s legislature overrode Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto to enact S.B. 4, which moves up the mail ballot receipt deadline to the close of polls on Election Day. Previously, ballots had to be postmarked by Election Day and received by the third day after Election Day to be counted.
Kentucky’s legislature overrode Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto of H.B. 164 and will now require voters to provide a second form of ID if they use a debit or credit card bearing their name as voter ID.
Thank you for reading this week’s edition of The Accessible Voting Booth! I’ll be back next week with more updates. As always, if you’d like to support the newsletter and my work, here’s how:
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