Your Right to an Accessible Ballot If You Have a Disability

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Regina Root, a professor at William & Mary who is blind, was required to hand her absentee ballot to another person because she could not read a standard printed ballot.

After a rare brain surgery left her disabled, she uses a cane and text-enlarging technology to read, and she cannot make out a standard printed ballot. So she faced a choice a lot of blind and low-vision voters know well: hand your ballot to another person and hope they mark it the way you asked, or fight for a tool that lets you do it yourself.

Her story sits inside a national wave of frustration, confusion, tears, and lots of legal fights across the country.

Federal law treats ballot accessibility as a civil right rather than a discretionary accommodation. Multiple statutes establish specific obligations on election offices.

Those laws guarantee you an equal chance to register, to reach and enter your polling place, and to use voting equipment that lets you mark and check your ballot privately. They also secure help from a person you choose and the ability to vote by mail with reasonable accommodations. The Department of Justice’s ADA site puts the principle plainly: “disability rights are civil rights,” and voting is one of the areas of public life the law protects.

The gap is between the law on paper and the polling place in front of you. Closing that gap is mostly a matter of knowing what to ask for, and knowing what to do when the answer is no.

The Laws That Sit Behind the Request

Five federal laws do the heavy lifting, and it helps to know which one gives you which right.

The Americans with Disabilities Act is the broad one. Its Title II requires state and local governments to give people with disabilities equal access to all their programs, and the entire election process, from registration to the final scan of your ballot, counts as a program.

The ADA’s definition of disability is deliberately wide: a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity, a record of one, or being regarded as having one. That sweep covers mobility, vision, and hearing disabilities, along with intellectual, developmental, and psychiatric conditions.

The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 adds a second layer. Section 504 says that no qualified individual with a disability… shall be excluded from, denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program that gets federal money or is run by a federal agency, as the DOJ’s disability rights guide lays out. Because election systems draw on federal funding, Section 504 often applies right alongside the ADA.

Then come the voting-specific statutes. The Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act of 1984 was written, in the words of the U.S. Code, “to promote the fundamental right to vote by improving access for handicapped and elderly individuals to registration facilities and polling places for Federal elections.” It sets the baseline rule: “each political subdivision responsible for conducting elections shall assure that all polling places for Federal elections are accessible to handicapped and elderly voters,” where “elderly” means 65 or older.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 is why an accessible machine exists at your precinct at all. Its Section 301 requires a voting system that is “accessible for individuals with disabilities, including nonvisual accessibility for the blind and visually impaired, in a manner that provides the same opportunity for access and participation (including privacy and independence) as for other voters,” through “at least one” such system “at each polling place.” HAVA grew out of the 2000 election crisis, a story we cover in our look at how Americans vote.

And the Voting Rights Act of 1965 supplies the right to help. More on that below, because it is the one voters invoke most often at the table.

What “Accessible” Actually Means at the Door

Accessibility starts before you reach the ballot. It starts in the parking lot.

The DOJ’s ADA Checklist for Polling Places translates the abstract right into measurements a surveyor can check with a tape measure. An accessible parking space, it says, is composed of three elements: the parking space, an access aisle adjacent to the space… and signage designating it as an accessible space.

The route from that space to the door “must be at least 36 inches wide.” And “a polling place must have at least one accessible entrance,” with a door at least 32 inches clear and hardware you can work with one hand, no tight grasping or twisting.

Those numbers are not decoration. A 32-inch door is the width a wheelchair passes through; one-hand hardware is a latch someone with limited grip can open.

The uncomfortable part is how often the standards go unmet. The Government Accountability Office visited a sample of 178 polling places during the 2016 general election for its report titled “Voters with Disabilities: Observations on Polling Place Accessibility and Related Federal Guidance.” Its finding, verbatim: “Outside the voting area, GAO was able to examine features at all 178 polling places and found that 60 percent (107) had one or more potential impediments.” Steep ramps, missing signs, bad surfaces.

Inside was worse in one respect. Of the 137 places where GAO could examine the voting station, 65 percent had an accessible system set up in a way that could block a private and independent vote. A machine might be angled so others could see the screen, or left with no room for a wheelchair. The equipment was present. The setup defeated it.

Asking for the Accessible Machine

The machine HAVA guarantees is often the same ballot-marking device other voters use, the machine you fill out your ballot on, with accessibility features switched on. Worth knowing, because “accessible voting machine” can sound like exotic equipment you have to justify. It usually is not.

These devices typically offer audio ballots through headphones, screen magnification, high-contrast display, tactile keypads, and compatibility with sip-and-puff devices or paddle switches, tools that let people with limited movement operate the machine, according to the MIT Election Data and Science Lab. You review your choices, then the device prints a paper ballot that gets scanned like any other. The federal specifications those systems are tested against live in the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines. Version 2.0 was adopted unanimously by the Election Assistance Commission in February 2021 and required for newly approved voting systems as of November 16, 2023.

What to do in practice: tell a poll worker you want to use the accessible voting system. They should know how to turn on audio output, adjust the display, and position the machine for you.

Poll workers can explain controls and troubleshoot. What they cannot do is watch your choices or suggest them. The whole point of HAVA’s language is privacy and independence, and asking for help operating the device does not surrender either.

If you have never used one, it is fair to ask your local election office in advance whether a demonstration or instructions are online. The Election Assistance Commission keeps accessibility resources aimed at officials, and some of that material is voter-facing.

Your Right to Bring Someone to Help

This is the right that resolves the most standoffs at the polls, and it is stated cleanly in one sentence of federal law.

Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, written into federal law (52 U.S.C. § 10508), provides: “Any voter who requires assistance to vote by reason of blindness, disability, or inability to read or write may be given assistance by a person of the voter’s choice, other than the voter’s employer or agent of that employer or officer or agent of the voter’s union.” The provision took effect January 1, 1984.

Read the exceptions closely, because they are the only two. Your boss cannot help you, and neither can a union officer. Everyone else is fair game: a spouse, a friend, a caregiver, a neighbor. The exclusions exist to block coercion by people with power over your job, not to give poll workers discretion.

A poll worker may ask your helper to sign a form promising to follow your instructions and keep your ballot secret. That is normal. What is not allowed is blocking your chosen helper for any reason outside the employer-or-union rule. If that happens, you can quote the statute, ask for a supervisor, and call your local election office from the polling place.

One more principle, recently sharpened. In guidance issued in April 2024, the DOJ made clear that needing help is not evidence you lack the capacity to vote. People with intellectual or mental health disabilities, or under guardianship, cannot be categorically disqualified or held to a higher standard than other voters, it added.

Whether that assistance right can be criminalized is itself being litigated. A federal complaint filed in December 2025, SC NAACP v. Wilson, challenges South Carolina restrictions on who may assist a voter, arguing that Section 208’s assistance right covers the challenged voters.

Curbside Voting Depends Heavily on Your State

Curbside voting, where a poll worker brings a ballot to your car, is not a nationwide guarantee.

The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that curbside voting is “not federally required,” and, per NCSL’s current data, 27 states plus Washington, D.C., Guam, and American Samoa permit eligible voters with disabilities to cast ballots from their vehicles. Within that group, “shall provide” and “may provide” are the difference between a right and a favor.

California and Texas show how far apart two mandates can sit.

Sources: Disability Rights California, VoteTexas.gov, and the Texas Secretary of State. Texas HB 521 also prohibits electioneering within 20 feet of curbside spaces.

The two states are moving in opposite directions. State guidance stresses that the Election Code does not authorize drive-thru voting open to all voters, and HB 521 adds a signed statement under penalty of perjury. The accompanying 20-foot electioneering ban is defended as a way to shield voters at the curb from pressure.

California went the other way, making curbside mandatory everywhere and dropping the oath, on the view that removing procedural steps lowers barriers for disabled voters. The tradeoff between reducing friction and adding verification is a genuine policy dispute rather than a settled question.

Because the ground shifts at the state line, the practical move is the same everywhere: call your local election office before Election Day. Ask whether curbside is offered at your polling place, how to signal poll workers (a posted phone number, a doorbell, an attendant), and whether you need to request it in advance.

Voting Before Election Day, and the Blind Voter’s Absentee Problem

Mail and absentee voting can remove barriers and create new ones. A paper ballot you cannot read is not accessible just because it arrived at your kitchen table.

The Voting Accessibility Act at least strips out one hurdle: no notarization or medical certification can be required of a disabled voter for an absentee ballot, except for a few state rules that check you’re still eligible. But the deeper problem, for blind and print-disabled voters, is the ballot itself. This is where remote accessible vote-by-mail, or RAVBM, comes in.

You receive a ballot electronically, mark it with your own screen reader or magnifier, then print and return a paper ballot. The paper record survives for counting and auditing, which is why RAVBM is not internet voting. California has certified four such systems and, under AB 37 (2021), made RAVBM available to all registered voters.

Much of this framework was built by voters who sued. Consider Shelbi Hindel, a blind Ohioan who had voted in every election since she turned 18. By the account of Disability Rights Ohio, she “needed help to read the ballot for many years, relying on someone to read it aloud to her and trusting them to vote the way she wanted to.” When the National Federation of the Blind approached Disability Rights Ohio about Ohio’s paper-only absentee process, Hindel “proudly became a named plaintiff in the suit.”

The suit was brought by three blind Ohio voters (Shelbi Hindel, Barbara Pierce, and Marianne Denning) together with the National Federation of the Blind, according to court records and the Bloomberg BNA case account. Judge George C. Smith of the Southern District of Ohio, in an order, ruled the Secretary of State’s website violated Title II of the ADA and ordered it made accessible.

On the absentee-ballot claim, the district court threw out the claim early, before hearing evidence, but the appeals court reversed that decision, ruling the state could not simply claim that accessible tools would be too big a change to its system. A directive later required every county board to select, test, and implement an accessible absentee tool by September 1.

Virginia’s story ran on a faster clock. In July 2020, several blind voters, including Regina Root, along with the American Council of the Blind of Virginia and the National Federation of the Blind of Virginia, sued the Commonwealth over inaccessible absentee ballots. A law firm’s summary of the case describes Judge Hilton approving a settlement (a consent decree) that required a remote accessible vote-by-mail tool for print-disabled voters in time for the November 3, 2020 election. Similar settlements followed in Indiana and Michigan.

If you live in an all-mail state, the same rights travel with the ballot. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, eight states plus D.C. ran all elections by mail, including Colorado (enacted 2013, implemented 2014) and Oregon (a 1998 citizen initiative, implemented 2000). You still keep your Section 208 right to a helper of your choice, and you can seek a RAVBM option where the state offers one.

Guardianship, Competency, and the Right That Gets Quietly Removed

For voters with intellectual, developmental, or psychiatric disabilities, the barrier is often not a ramp. It is a legal status that strips voting rights without anyone examining whether the person can actually vote.

Supporters of capacity-based limits argue that the state has a legitimate interest in ensuring a ballot reflects the voter’s own intent, and coercion of individuals unable to form voting intent is generally difficult to detect.

The landmark ruling here is Doe v. Rowe, decided August 9, 2001 by Judge George Z. Singal of the District of Maine. The state’s taking away voting rights from those under guardianship “by reason of mental illness is unconstitutional,” violating basic fairness and equal-treatment guarantees in the Constitution.

Central to the court’s reasoning was that Maine’s guardianship process stripped voting rights without any case-by-case check of whether the person could actually vote, or notice that such rights were at stake. According to the court’s ruling, in implementing its voting restriction, the state defendants had violated Title II of the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

The National Disability Rights Network, which coordinates the Protection and Advocacy system, recommends a narrow test: keep the right unless a court finds, by clear and convincing evidence, that a person cannot communicate a desire to participate, even with accommodations. In Arizona, a person under limited guardianship retains the right to vote only if they file a petition and a judge finds, by clear and convincing evidence, that they retain sufficient understanding to vote — the burden falls on the individual. Federal guidance issued in 2024 points the same direction, warning that officials cannot impose their own informal “capacity to vote” tests.

When the Answer Is No: How to Complain

Say the entrance is blocked, the accessible machine is broken, or a poll worker refuses your helper. You have more than one channel, and they run in parallel.

The fastest is on-site. Raise it with a poll worker, then the precinct supervisor. Many jurisdictions now designate an ADA coordinator, a requirement DOJ has been writing into settlements.

For a formal ADA complaint, the DOJ takes reports online or by mailed paper form, and www.ada.gov lists its ADA Information Line at 800-514-0301 (voice) and 1-833-610-1264 (TTY). After you file, DOJ may mediate, refer the matter, ask for more information, or investigate. It cannot investigate every complaint, and it will tell you if it declines.

Voting-specific violations, denial of a Section 208 helper, an inaccessible polling place, a botched HAVA machine, go to the DOJ Voting Section, reachable by toll-free number or email through its voter rights page. HAVA also requires each state to run its own administrative complaint process, usually a written, sometimes notarized, filing you can start through your local election office. And your state’s Protection and Advocacy agency can help document a barrier and, when needed, push it toward DOJ.

Why Enforcement Is the Story Now

The rights are old. What is new is a run of federal enforcement testing whether they hold at scale, and it is the thread worth watching over the next few election cycles.

In August 2024, DOJ reached a settlement with Los Angeles County, one of the nation’s largest jurisdictions, over vote centers and curbside voting that it alleged denied disabled voters equal access. The three-year agreement puts an independent accessibility expert on the county’s site selection and requires semiannual reporting. A month later, a settlement with Hays County, Texas addressed barriers found at surveyed polling places: missing van-accessible parking, steep ramps without handrails, uneven ground.

The frontier has moved online, too. DOJ found several Texas counties’ election websites inaccessible to voters with vision or manual disabilities. A 2024 agreement requires them to meet the WCAG 2.1 AA standard, a benchmark for making websites usable with screen readers, and to hire an independent auditor.

Whether all of this narrows the participation gap is the open question. Research has tracked a stubborn disability turnout deficit across cycles.

Source: Schur and Kruse, EAC/Rutgers report. Figures are adjusted gaps comparing turnout of eligible voters with and without disabilities; the unadjusted 2020 gap was 11.3 points.

The encouraging finding buried in that same research is that access reforms move the needle. States that expanded mail voting and drop boxes between 2016 and 2020 saw larger disabled-turnout gains, an estimated 586,600 additional disabled voters and a 2.0-point bump, against only 0.4 points for non-disabled voters from the same changes. Voters with vision impairments, whose turnout ran 11.6 points below their non-disabled peers in 2020, gain the most from accessible options and lose the most when they vanish.

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