Disability Voting News: April 8, 2026

Welcome to The Accessible Voting Booth for April 8, 2026! We have a lot to cover today, so let's get into it.

Federal court dismisses lawsuit challenging Alabama’s absentee voting system as discriminatory against voters with print disabilities (via Democracy Docket).

On March 20, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama Western Division dismissed a lawsuit against Alabama’s absentee voting system regarding the accessibility of absentee voting. Four Alabama voters, David Rissling, Eric Peebles, Gail Clayton, and Gilley Presley, along with the National Federation of the Blind, filed a lawsuit against absentee election managers for multiple Alabama counties, arguing that the system violates Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. 

Alabama’s absentee ballot program currently only allows overseas and military voters to vote electronically; voters with disabilities must vote on and return a paper ballot. This is inaccessible for voters with print disabilities including the plaintiffs, who must have assistance from another person to complete their absentee ballot. 

The Court decided that, while the plaintiffs had standing to sue, they already have “meaningful access to the benefit of absentee voting” by way of Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act, which provides that “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.” Therefore, the court says that the plaintiffs’ argument that they have not been given an “equal opportunity to absentee vote” is incorrect, and that “equal opportunity” means that “a public entity need not ensure that disabled individuals participate in an identical manner as nondisabled individuals, only that they have the same opportunity to participate. It follows that Title II does not require public entities to provide a voter’s preferred accommodations where existing measures available to that voter already provide meaningful access.”

The court goes on to address the plaintiffs’ argument that they have a right to vote “privately, independently, and remotely,” stating that Title II of the ADA does not require this, and that this requirement is not “consistent with the ‘accommodation’ Congress has designed – indeed, required – by way of Section 208.” The court explains that while Alabama law affords the right to a secret ballot, that right is unenforceable under the ADA and also contradicts the part of Alabama law that permits any voter to receive voting assistance. Additionally, the court explains that electronic voting has been afforded to overseas and military voters by way of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), which does not afford access to voters on the basis of disability. Therefore, voters have not been denied access to electronic absentee voting on the basis of their disabilities, but because they are not eligible to use the electronic voting option only available to overseas and military voters. 

This is certainly a frustrating court case and loss for the disability community. While it is true that the VRA allows voter assistance, at the time the VRA was established in the 1960s, there were no electronic, accessible mechanisms that afforded voters with print disabilities an accessible means to read, mark, and cast their ballot (either in person or via absentee ballot) This is also true for the ADA, which predates electronic absentee balloting tools. We clearly have better, more accessible tools that allow voters who are blind, have low vision, or have mobility disabilities that make marking and handling a paper ballot impossible to do so privately and independently, and we should make those available. While it’s true that these voters have not been denied access to the vote, they are still denied privacy and independence. We have the tools to fix that, tools that are readily available to voters who live overseas or serve in the military. Alabama, and all states, should use these tools to ensure that voters who can’t independently read, mark, and handle a paper absentee ballot have the opportunity to do so electronically. 

Rhode Island restores electronic voting for disabled and UOCAVA voters (via The Markup). 

On April 1, Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee signed into law the reinstatement of electronic voting for eligible disabled and UOCAVA (overseas and military) voters, a program that had previously been successful but expired. This program allows these voters to read, mark, and return their ballots electronically. It includes “disabled voters who are incapacitated to such an extent that it would be an undue hardship to vote at the polls because of illness, mental or physical disability, blindness, or serious impairment of mobility.”

See, Alabama? This is how it's done.

New Trump Executive Order Targets Mail Voting Access

Obviously, the biggest news of the past few weeks is yet another (unconstitutional) Executive Order aimed at restricting mail voting. “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” issued on March 31, directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to create a list of U.S. citizens in each state who are eligible to vote by mail. This list would be shared no fewer than 60 days before each Federal election. This list will be derived from Federal citizenship and naturalization records, Social Security Administration records, SAVE data, and other federal databases. The American Association of Disabilities (AAPD) has already responded with their concerns on how this Executive Order, if enforced, would disenfranchise newly eligible voters, voters who have recently moved, and those whose information contains errors in federal databases:

This EO changes how states will determine who is eligible to vote by mail, creating a “citizenship list” based on data from the Social Security Administration and Department of Homeland Security. This data has been repeatedly found to include inaccurate and outdated information. This means that eligible voters could be erroneously disenfranchised and disabled voters could lose access to their only method of accessible voting. 

The “citizenship list” of who is eligible to vote by mail would be shared 60 days before an election, conflicting with existing state deadlines for voter registration and vote by mail requests. This would disenfranchise newly eligible voters and voters who have recently moved but are still within state deadlines to update their registration. It also creates barriers for voters with disabilities whose needs may change unexpectedly. A voter who typically votes in person may experience a flare in their health, planned or unplanned hospitalization, change in their direct care staffing, or loss of accessible transportation. These examples are only a few reasons why a disabled person might decide to vote by mail on shorter notice than 60 days out from an election. Current state processes allow for this flexibility, this EO would take it away.

Like with other Executive Orders on voting, Trump does not have the authority to enact these changes, as election administration is left to the states. We can anticipate several legal challenges to this order. Read the full statement from AAPD here.

Delaware House Advances Voting Rights Protections (via The News Journal).

On March 26, the Delaware House voted overwhelmingly to pass two amendments. The first amendment would extend early, in-person voting to primaries in addition to general and special elections, starting 10 calendar days before an election. The second amendment would establish no-excuse absentee voting, and passed with changes removing language that would’ve established a permanent absentee status list for voters who are unable to vote in person (due to disability, military status, or residency outside of the United States). Because this amendment passed with changes, it now has to head back to the Senate for additional consideration. 

Both of these amendments are first-leg amendments, which means their next step (pending the second amendment’s passage from the Senate) requires them to be passed again by the next General Assembly. 

Disability rights groups fight to protect privacy and voting rights of Wisconsinites under guardianship (via WisPolitics). 

In Wisconsin Voter Alliance v. Secord, the right-wing Wisconsin Voter Alliance has requested access to court documents that record when a person under guardianship has had their right to vote removed, documents that are kept confidential because they contain sensitive medical and financial information. In an amicus brief, Disability Rights Wisconsin and the Greater Wisconsin Agency on Aging Resources has asked the court to block this request:

This lawsuit isn’t about election integrity; it’s an effort to invade the privacy of some of Wisconsin’s most vulnerable residents and to intimidate Wisconsinites from exercising their constitutionally protected right to vote,” said Law Forward President and General Counsel Jeff Mandell. “Individuals under guardianship have strong, carefully designed protections. Among those protections is that individuals under guardianship retain their right to vote until and unless a judge makes a specific finding, based on evidence, that the individual lacks capacity to vote.

Read the full amicus brief here. 

Florida and Mississippi enact restrictive proof-of-citizenship laws (via The Markup). 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed HB 991 into law, which removes several types of IDs as acceptable voter ID and requires new citizenship verification requirements starting in 2027. 

From Voting Rights Lab:

Starting in 2027, the law will impose new citizenship verification requirements and restrict the types of voter ID acceptable for voting. The law will require proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, for individuals registering to vote who do not already have proof of citizenship on file with the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. The bill will also remove student IDs, retirement center IDs, public assistance IDs, neighborhood association IDs, and debit and credit cards as acceptable forms of voter ID for in-person voting. Within minutes of the governor signing the law, voting rights organizations filed multiple lawsuits challenging it.

Meanwhile, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves signed the SHIELD Act into law, which will require proof of citizenship during voter registration if a voter meets one of the following conditions:

• The individual cannot be found in the Department of Public Safety database or the database indicates the individual is a non-citizen; or
• The federal SAVE database indicates the individual is not a U.S. citizen.

This is not as restrictive as Florida’s new law, but as AAPD mentioned above in their press release about Trump’s new Executive Order, the SAVE database is notoriously unreliable, which means that many people who don’t meet one of the requirements above may be inaccurately flagged and required to provide proof of citizenship. This ProPublica investigation goes into greater detail about inaccuracies in the SAVE database. 

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