People with disabilities overall were 10.0 to 11.7 percentage points less likely to vote in presidential elections over the 2008–2022 period, and the gaps remain after controlling for other personal characteristics. There is recent progress, however, as relative turnout of people with disabilities increased in 2020 and 2022 compared to four years earlier.

The number of voters with disabilities who experienced difficulty voting dropped from 26% in 2012 to 14% in 2022, but this is still considerably higher than the 4–7% reported by other voters.

Some of the most important barriers facing voters with disabilities and senior citizens are:

• Obstacles in accessing voting information, in particular the lower internet access among people with disabilities and senior citizens, inaccessible formats, and hard-to-read information.
• Transportation and physical access to polling places, including difficulties in getting to a polling place, getting inside the polling place, standing in line, and (particularly for people with intellectual disabilities) being permitted to vote.
• Accessibility of voting systems and materials, including physical difficulties in voting, the need for extra features or devices to be set up and working when the voter arrives, and confusing ballot layouts or instructions.
• Receiving, completing, and returning mail ballots — voting by mail is more common among people with disabilities in general but can pose problems, especially for people with visual impairments.

Native American voters

Native American political engagement is affected by their history and unique civic status. Many encounter racial animus in off-reservation border towns where they go to register and vote. Registration and voting rates are low. Political trust in local government officials is very low, as is trust that votes in non-tribal elections are counted, especially when votes are cast by mail.

Academic researchers have identified nine barriers:

• Intimidation and harassment of Native voters
• Shortage of poll workers able to provide culturally appropriate assistance and assist voters with limited English proficiency
• Insufficient information due to the digital divide and failure to provide information in American Indian/Alaska Native languages
• Unequal registration access
• Voter ID laws that require traditional addresses
• Purging of voters
• Unequal access to polling places, drop boxes, and early voting sites
• Extreme travel distances, road impediments, lack of public transit/high cost of gasoline and border town harassment
• Problems with voting by mail on reservations, including no residential mail delivery, few post offices, slow delivery times and delivery failures, and ballot rejection rates

Rural residents

More than two thirds of U.S. counties can be classified as rural. Given that elections are administered at the local level, this means more than two thirds of election officials serve predominantly rural jurisdictions. The population of these areas, in general, continues to decline — which has implications for tax revenue, workers, and access points for government services.

It is not controversial to assume that rural voters have distinct challenges when it comes to public transit, infrastructure, technological connectivity, literacy, and most other measures related to quality of life and service delivery. Many rural jurisdictions have limited accommodations for aging populations, including well-documented issues surrounding Americans with Disabilities Act compliance.

Young voters and college students

Even in the 2020 general election, with its historically high turnout, there was a 25-percentage point gap between the voter turnout rates of 18–29-year-olds compared to those over 60.

Younger voters are disproportionately likely to have their mail ballots rejected for lack of timeliness or deficiencies with return envelopes. Since young voters are sensitive to changes in polling locations, the presence of on-campus, early in-person voting can facilitate college student voting. Young voters casting vote-by-mail ballots suffer from an “inexperience penalty,” resulting in a disproportionate number of rejected ballots and thus reduced political representation.

This paper was written by Lisa Schur, Mason Ameri, Joseph Dietrich, Michael Herron, Douglas Kruse, Whitney Quesenbery, Melissa Rogers, Jean Schroedel, Daniel A. Smith, and Cameron Wimpy. It was originally published as part of the Mapping Election Administration and Election Science project, led by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab with support from the Election Trust Initiative.