Due to the COVID pandemic, voters with disabilities are enjoying a new era of political significance on this election day-it has triggered reforms and exposed inequality. 

Steve Flamisch, of the Rutgers University Disability Research Project, referring to a report by the university and the U.S. Electoral Assistance Board, said that people with disabilities have demonstrated " Great progress". 

After reviewing national data, the organization said that due to mailed ballots and other measures, the voter turnout rate rose from 16 million in 2016 to 17.7 million.

This is a community that has historically been divided into smaller groups, each of which is lobbying for specific needs in areas such as hearing or vision loss, mobility or developmental disabilities, rather than merging into a larger political group. This keeps these voters excluded from initial discussions about public policy and needs to be fixed afterwards, such as those in the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

"This is an amazing thing," Douglas Cruise said of the increasing turnout. Cruise is an economist at Rutgers University. He has been focusing on disability research since he was paralyzed after a car accident in 1990. 

Due to the convenience of expanding early voting, ballot boxes, mail voting, and increasing working hours at polling stations, Cruise and his wife Lisa Shure hope to continue this trend. 

"The more choices, the better," Cruise said.  

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Researchers analyzed the current census voting and registration supplementary data of the federal government in November 2020 and found that 62% of people with disabilities voted in 2020, up from 56% in 2016. 

In the highly competitive 2020 general election, this 6 percentage point increase is slightly higher than the 5 percentage point increase in the total population's turnout rate. 

Research by Rutgers University found that the mail voting used by many states to reduce the risk of COVID played a key role: more than 53% of people with disabilities voted by mail, compared with 42% of people without disabilities.   

Due to the aging population, Cruise and Shure identified 38.3 million eligible disabled voters in 2020, an increase of 19.8% from 2008.

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According to data from the National Disability Statistics and Population Rehabilitation Research and Training Center, the national agency responsible for compiling disability studies, there are 901,446 people with disabilities in New Jersey.

They said that while the couple attributed much of the increase in turnout to voting reforms, the pandemic has also brought to the fore the key issue of motivating the community.  

Cruise said: "The pandemic has hit the disabled in particular. We will have a study to show that during a health crisis, the decline in employment for persons with disabilities is greater than the decline in employment for non-disabled persons." 

He said that Americans with disabilities are half as likely to find a job as those without disabilities. This gap existed before the pandemic and is likely to continue after the pandemic. 

According to the Annual Report on Americans with Disabilities issued by the Center for Disability Statistics and Population Rehabilitation Research and Training, the median income of full-time employees with disabilities in 2019 was US$40,454, while the median income of full-time workers without disabilities was US$46,250 . 

"Healthcare will also continue to be a very big problem," Shure said.   

A 2018 study by Democratic polling expert Stan Greenberg showed that “people with disabilities are more likely to care about the Affordable Care Act than non-disabled people,” Cruise added.

The question is "Unite with people who may not even think they have a disability. It may just be "I have some health problems" or "I have problems with hearing or walking." But I have no disability,'" Shure said.

Although improvements in voting are welcome, Cruise pointed out that there is still a long way to go. Based on his work, it is estimated that 1.95 million people with disabilities will not be able to vote in 2020. He said that disabled voters "still have almost twice the difficulty of voting for non-disabled voters."

"We are very happy to see that progress is being made, but there is still room for improvement in future elections," said Donald Palmer, chairman of the Electoral Assistance Committee. "These data are vital to officials because they consider new voting technologies, options for voters to vote, and address the growing accessibility needs of an aging population."

Will the newly discovered voices of the community lead to change?

Cruise said that across the country, it is difficult to judge. In Washington, Congress is debating the expansion of the health insurance plan, and he said many people in the community rely on the plan. "But whether disability voting has any impact on this is hard to say," Cruise added.

With the launch of the vaccine booster distribution program in New Jersey, advocates say communities are better now than when the pandemic began. 

Stephen Sweeney, a Democrat and Speaker of the New Jersey Senate, said that New Jersey residents with disabilities "have to really talk about hell" to ensure that they "will not be forgotten." Throughout 2020, communities, their advocates and families must work hard to include it in emergency plans. But last winter, the ears of politicians and administrators were pricked up. 

More than 35 lawmakers from both sides of the aisle joined the disabled core group, which gathered to consider how the laws they made would affect the community. A few months ago, the Disability Action Committee established by the community issued a stern report stating that the rights of persons with disabilities were "abolished" and their voices were "suppressed".

In June, the state allocated up to $600 million to extend courses for thousands of disabled students whose studies were interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. On October 27th, the State Department of Developmental Disorders announced that group households were eligible for enhanced injections.

Earlier this year, the same group of people, including some of the most vulnerable residents of the state, saw millions of people line up before them to buy a COVID vaccine. But they didn't make a fuss about the launch of the booster—it was a sign of their newly acquired political power, advocates said.  

Over the years, the opportunities for parking and entering polling stations have greatly improved, and the New Jersey Disability Rights Organization provides these tips and hotlines in case voters run into problems on election day.

"If there is no parking space or the site is inaccessible, please call New Jersey Disability Rights," said Mary Ciccone, DRNJ's managing attorney. "That was something that could be easily resolved that day."

What happens if your signature does not match the signature in the poll book? For some people with disabilities, the signature may change from year to year due to shaking hands or inconvenience.

Ciccone said that the staff at the polling station should provide an opportunity "if your signature does not match." "Whether you vote by mail or go in person, you must sign on the voting book. To show who you are, your signature must match. You can try again, but you can also just show your ID."

Need to hear your choice? You can have two poll workers (must be from different political parties) enter the polling station with you, or request an accessible machine that reads the options into the headset.

You can contact Disability Rights in New Jersey at 1-866-493-0023 or voterhotline@disabilityrightsnj.org.

Gene Myers is a reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news of your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account now.