Welcome to the Accessible Voting Booth Blog!
Welcome to The Accessible Voting Booth Blog! I'm excited that you’re here and that you’re interested in learning more about protecting the right to vote for millions of Americans with disabilities in 2025 and beyond. I'm eager to share updates on disability voting rights, analysis of state and federal legislation, and other news and information about defending access to the ballot box. I'm also creating the Accessible Voting Booth newsletter on Ghost, where I will cross-post from my original blog on my website and hopefully be adding even more information in the future. You can subscribe to my Ghost newsletter here.
UPDATE: on Wednesday, March 11th, I will publish the first real edition of the Accessible Voting Booth Blog with voting rights news and analysis. Stay tuned!
About Me
My name is Sarah Blahovec, and I've been working in disability voting rights and civic engagement for nearly 10 years. This work has taken many forms, from working as a voting rights organizer for a nonpartisan disability nonprofit, to a stint with the DNC, to now working as a freelance civic engagement consultant while also running Disability Victory, a small 501(c)4 dedicated to breaking down barriers to disabled progressive leadership. My work has spanned writing voting rights guides, researching voting policy, analyzing polling place accessibility, writing poll worker training materials, doing voter outreach and engagement, and much more. I am a huge nerd when it comes to voting rights and accessibility.
Why Am I Starting This Blog Now?
It’s 2025, and so much is going on that our heads are collectively spinning. The federal government is being dismantled by Executive Orders and DOGE. Federal funding is being slashed, impacting millions of people around the country and the world. Disabled organizers are fighting potentially catastrophic cuts to Medicaid and Social Security, attempts to roll back disability rights laws, and attacks on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Since 2025 isn’t a year for federal elections, it’s easy to lose track of what’s happening with our access to the vote. However, state legislatures are considering legislation that could either expand or threaten our access to the ballot box, and federal legislation like the SAVE (Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility) Act, if passed, could potentially disenfranchise millions of Americans.
As a freelance disability civic engagement expert, my work in 2025 looks different as well. While 2024 was my busiest year ever, the democracy and civic engagement landscape has changed, and I'm having a hard time finding more work in the civic engagement space. This blog will give me another way to engage on this issue, as I will be able to inform all my readers about the latest news as well as ways to meaningfully advocate for voting rights and accessibility.
Why Does This Matter?
Accessing the right to vote has never been easy for the majority of Americans. Jim Crow laws may be gone, but their white supremacist legacy lives on in racialized voter suppression through actions such as gerrymandering, voter ID laws, the Supreme Court’s decision to roll back the Voting Rights Act, and the use of the Americans with Disabilities Act to try to close polling places in majority-minority communities. Disabled people continue to experience systemic access barriers throughout the voting process, from inaccessible state voter registration websites to polling places that are still inaccessible over 30 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. In 2025, billions of dollars pour into our elections and politicians are beholden to the interests of corporations. There are so many barriers to exercising our right to vote, and to feeling like voting has meaning and power, that some days it can be tempting to give into despair. But then I remind myself that giving into despair is what they–billionaires, corporate interests, proponents of racialized voter suppression and inaccessible elections–want. They wouldn’t work so hard to take our voting rights away if those rights didn’t matter.
The purpose of this blog (and the newsletter that will accompany it) is to talk about the landscape of voting rights legislation and electoral administration and how it will impact voters with disabilities. I don't need to reinvent the wheel by tracking all voting rights policy–organizations like the Voting Rights Lab are already doing that. I will talk about how current legislation, from voting rights restoration initiatives to new voter ID laws, would impact voters with disabilities, and identify opportunities to get involved in advocacy around state voting rights reforms. I will share what I'm learning about the SAVE Act, documentary proof of citizenship legislation, and the legal battles around these potential requirements that may end up in front of the Supreme Court. I will also share voting rights wins, from county clerks who are proactively improving polling place accessibility to innovative ideas from disabled organizers.
I plan on sharing regular updates, and I hope you will follow along and share with your network. I’m not planning on putting this information behind a paywall because voting rights information should be free. If you are interested in supporting this project and my work, there are a few ways to do that:
If you or someone you know is looking to hire a disability civic engagement expert, please reach out!
Leave me a tip. Thank you for supporting my work!
Head over to support Disability Victory and our work in 2025.
