“Disability, the Voting Process, and the Digital Divide” was conducted through a national survey in March and April of 2022 to identify both the advancements and gaps in accessibility for voters with disabilities. The EAC commissioned Rutgers University to conduct this study and worked with Professors Dr. Lisa Schur and Dr. Douglas Kruse, Co-Directors of the Program for Disability Research at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University, and Dr. Mason Ameri, Associate Professor of Professional Practice at the Rutgers Business School.
The study was conducted with a focus on computer and internet use, sources of information on the voting process used in 2020, accessibility of information sources, preferred ways of receiving information about the voting process, trust in information sources, expectations about voting and information sources in 2022, and knowledge of rights for accessible information. Access to this data is critical for election officials who are continuously working to communicate and meet the needs of their jurisdictions. Understanding how to better communicate with voters with disabilities – regardless of access to the internet – is crucial to making elections more accessible.
Disability, the Voting Process, and the Digital Divide (PDF version link)
Disability, the Voting Process, and the Digital Divide (Word version link)
The survey has 2,426 respondents, stratified to include 1,186 citizens with disabilities and 1,240 citizens without disabilities. The oversampling of citizens with disabilities was done to secure a large enough sample for small margins of error and reliable breakdowns within the disability sample.