Lisa Schur and Douglas Kruse of Rutgers: Fact sheet: Disability and Voter Turnout in the 2018 Elections
Key points:
- Voter turnout surged by 8.5 points in 2018 among citizens with disabilities relative to the 2014 midterm elections. The surge, though, was slightly larger among citizens without disabilities (11.9 points), resulting in a 4.7 point gap in voter turnout between citizens with and without disabilities in 2018.
- The increased turnout among people with disabilities occurred across all disability types and demographic categories—gender, race/ethnicity, age group, and region.
- 14.3 million citizens with disabilities reported voting in the November 2018 elections.
- Employed people with disabilities were just as likely as employed people without
- disabilities to vote, suggesting that employment helps bring people with disabilities into mainstream political life.
- If people with disabilities voted at the same rate as people without disabilities who have the same demographic characteristics, there would be about 2.35 million more voters.
These figures are based on analysis of data from the federal government’s Current
Population Survey Voting Supplement for November 2018, which has a sample size of 88,749. The computations were made using six disability questions introduced on the Current Population Survey in 2008.
