US Vote Blog

National Disability Voting Rights Week - Guest Blog - Issue 2.

38 Million. That’s the number of eligible voters with disabilities in the U.S. Each year, there is a Disability Voting Rights Week. Learn why the disability vote matters and how you work to build the power of the disability vote with us.

Disabled voters make up one of the largest voting blocs in the country. Many politicians and lawmakers prefer to think of us as passive members of society, content to be left out of the political process. But this could not be farther from the truth.

National Disability Voting Rights Week - Guest Blog - Issue 1.

The first guest blog post in U.S. Vote Foundation’s Disability Rights Voting Week series comes from Elizabeth Pendo. Prof. Pendo is the Joseph J. Simeone Professor of Law at Saint Louis University School of Law and an expert in disability law, health care law and policy, and bioethics and the law. She served on the ABA Commission on Disability Rights.

Next week is National Disability Voting Rights Week, and at US Vote we’re doing everything we can to ensure voting is accessible for all – whether at the polling place, through a drop box, or by mail.

One in four American adults – over 60 million – lives with a disability. And one in six voters -38 million total - are impacted by a disability. Despite these significant figures, roughly two-thirds of polling places in the country still aren’t in full compliance...

A truly representative democracy requires all American citizens to express their voices through their ballots. While it can be exciting to cast a vote, anyone intent on making their preferences heard in the electoral process must fulfill a few steps and make a plan – to successfully vote in the 2024...

Unfounded concerns about the integrity of the 2020 election have spiraled into a crisis of confidence in our nation’s core election infrastructure. Over the past two years, this has taken the form of personal threats to election officials’ physical safety, a proliferation of unofficial audits, a concentration of state legislatures’ authority to usurp election results, and, most recently, an attempt to move to entirely hand counted elections.

Every election cycle offers more reminders of the problems with our “first-past-the-post” voting method.

In this spring’s primaries, we’ve seen numerous candidates nominated with a third of the vote or less – meaning two-thirds of primary voters chose someone else. We’ve seen candidates strategically drop out of races, fearing that they’d split votes with ideologically similar competitors and inadvertently help less preferable candidates if they stay in the contest...

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is a voting method that permits citizens to rank candidates on the ballot in order of preference.

The voter’s preferred candidate is marked as her first choice, and then the voter can mark the remaining candidates as being her second choice, third choice, etc., all the way down the entire list of candidates. A voter can also just list her first choice, or she can rank as many choices as there are candidates on a ranked choice ballot – it’s up to the individual voter.

Each state has different rules regarding domestic absentee voting.  Some states impose additional requirements, like witness and/or notary signatures. We've got answers for you here.

Absentee voting, either by mail or by placing a ballot in a drop box, is more popular than ever. In 2020, 65 million...

Ballot Drop Boxes are Safe and Easy to Use. Here’s How to Find Out If Voting by Drop Box is Available in Your State.

The widespread ability to vote absentee using a ballot drop box is one of the innovative voting options that Americans have. During the pandemic, drop boxes were a response to the need...