Disability Voting News: February 11, 2026

Sarah Blahovec

Sarah Blahovec

— 8 min read
The Accessible Voting Booth: Disability Voting News: February 11, 2026

It's February! We survived the longest January of all time. I have a lot of updates today: the Trump Administration and its allies are ramping up their attacks on elections ahead of November, so we're going to dive into exactly what that looks like. Plus, we'll discuss a class-action lawsuit for accessible absentee in Texas and a bill in New Jersey to permit disabled voters to skip the line at polling places.

Steve Bannon says ICE will “surround the polls” as Trump doubles down on taking over elections (via Democracy Docket). 

Last Tuesday, former advisor to Trump (and Jeffrey Epstein bestie) Steve Bannon said on his War Room podcast that the Trump administration will deploy ICE to the polls on Election Day:

“We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again. And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen.”

This is both expected but alarming considering this administration’s track record of using ICE as the President’s personal paramilitary, and comes after Trump called to “nationalize voting,” despite the fact that the Elections Clause of the Constitution makes it clear that states are responsible for conducting elections. Remember when Republicans were the party of “states’ rights?” 

Of course, deploying ICE thugs, or any law enforcement, to the polls is super illegal, not that this administration cares. As the Brennan Center writes: 

“The law is crystal clear: It is illegal to deploy federal troops or armed federal law enforcement to any polling place. In fact, it is a federal crime for anyone in the U.S. military to interfere in elections in any way. More specifically, it is a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, to deploy federal ‘troops or armed men’ to any location where voting is taking place or elections are being held, unless ‘such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.’ The law, which dates back to the end of the Civil War, originally also allowed troops at the polls when necessary to ‘keep the peace,’ but that exception was removed more than 100 years ago.”

After Bannon made these comments, The Department of Homeland Security denied plans to station ICE at the polls during the election:

"ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations. ICE conducts intelligence-driven targeted enforcement, and if an active public safety threat endangered a polling location, they may be arrested as a result of that targeted enforcement action."

However, as ICE and this administration continue to regularly violate the law, it would be unwise to take them at their word. What this means is that state and local election officials need to start preparing now for how they will respond to this and protect the rights of voters who are most likely to be profiled (voters of color) and polling places in areas most likely to be targeted by ICE (communities of color). 

We also need true leadership in Congress who understands that we must abolish ICE. As of now, we don’t have that. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) believes that “commonsense reforms” such as wearing body cameras and removing masks will rein in ICE’s vicious brutality, and that “real police training” will reform ICE (and CBP). These comments completely ignore that:

ICE cannot be reformed. It must be abolished. In the meantime, we must continue to protect our communities from ICE’s violence. Hopefully state and local elected leaders will take Bannon’s comments as a sign to begin preparing now for illegal ICE deployment to the polls in November. 

The GOP fast tracks the SAVE Act (via Democracy Docket). 

As I had mentioned in the January 28th issue of this newsletter, Republicans were signaling that they plan to bring back the SAVE Act, which would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. Last week, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said that House leadership would bring the SAVE Act up for a vote this week.

There are some changes to the current version of the SAVE Act in the House. Previously, the legislation would require voters to show documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) both to register to vote and every time they go to vote at the polls. Now, the legislation has replaced the requirement for DPOC at the polls with a strict photo ID requirement and the requirement that states run voter roles through the Department of Homeland Security’s citizenship verification tool (called the SAVE program, name not related to the SAVE Act). Voters would still need to provide DPOC to register to vote. 

The amended version of the SAVE Act would still potentially disenfranchise millions of Americans, and it’s not the only bill that Republican legislators are considering. The Senate’s version of the SAVE Act, the SAVE America Act, would still require voters to show DPOC at the polls unless their state has been handing voter rolls to the DHS SAVE program since June 2025. And House Republicans are also considering the Make American Elections Great Again Act, which also has DPOC and photo ID requirements, along with banning universal vote by mail and ranked-choice voting. 

Unfortunately, there isn’t uniform Democratic opposition to the SAVE Act–last year, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) voted in favor of the bill, stating that “Voting in our nation’s elections is a sacred right belonging only to American citizens, and my vote for the SAVE Act reflects that principle.” The SAVE Act has the potential to disenfranchise millions of people in the supposed name of stopping nearly nonexistent noncitizen voting, and Gluesenkamp Perez still voted in favor of it. (She also recently joined six other Democrats to fund DHS for two weeks during shutdown negotiations).

That’s why it’s important to call both your representative and your senators and tell them to oppose the SAVE Act suite of legislation. The ACLU has provided a convenient action alert to help you contact your legislators.

Voters with disabilities sue Harris County for allegedly lacking inclusive vote-by-mail options (via Disability Rights Texas). 

A group of voters who are blind and have print disabilities, along with the National Federation of the Blind of Texas and represented by Disability Rights Texas, have filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Harris County and County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth, stating that the county violates Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 by failing to provide remote accessible vote by mail (RAVBM) ballots for voters who cannot read or complete paper ballots. 

Currently, Harris County only provides paper vote-by-mail ballots to voters, but it has provided electronic ballots to military and overseas voters in the past. Paper vote-by-mail ballots are not accessible to voters with print disabilities–voters who are blind, low vision, or have other disabilities that make it difficult or impossible to independently read, mark, and verify a paper ballot. However, a remote accessible vote-by-mail ballot would enable these voters to use assistive technologies such as screen readers to be able to independently read, mark, verify, and return their ballots. 

This lawsuit comes after advocacy from disability rights organizations in the state:

“All the clients are asking is to have equal access to the fundamental right to vote without having to depend on others for assistance,” said DRTx Supervising Attorney Sashi Nisankarao. “DRTx was in conversations with the county for over a year in an effort to allow the county to voluntarily implement RAVBM for voters with print disabilities, but these conversations ended abruptly during the November 2024 Election.”

Despite advocacy from both disabled individuals and disability advocacy organizations, Harris County has denied requests for accommodations via an accessible absentee ballot, and even stated that Texas law prohibits electronic ballots for disabled voters, which is not true. Bexar County offers an accessible absentee portal after being ordered to do so as the outcome of a similar lawsuit in 2023. 

New Jersey bill would let blind, disabled voters skip to the front of polling lines (via Shore News Network). 

Assembly Bill A5178 was introduced by Republican Assemblyman Alex Sauickie on January 14th to accommodate blind or physically disabled voters by permitting them to move to the front of polling lines. This is an important accommodation for some disabled voters who want to vote in person, and I hope it passes.

At the same time, I can’t help but feel some suspicion about how this bill, if passed, could be used by some politicians to undermine attempts to preserve voting by mail at a time when Republicans across the country seek to roll back absentee and mail voting. One of the arguments for preserving absentee and mail voting is that many voters with disabilities prefer to vote by mail. Waiting in line is just one of many barriers that voters with disabilities experience when voting in person. They can also experience physical barriers to the polling place, communication barriers, discrimination within the polling place, or even challenges accessing transportation to get to the polling place. 

There are many reasons why someone may choose to vote by mail/absentee ballot. For example, someone with an energy-limiting disability may benefit from being able to move from the front of the line, but they may still find it draining, difficult, or impossible to get to and from the polling place. We need to preserve access to absentee/mail voting for those who benefit from it, and who desire to vote that way. I worry that some politicians could weaponize this legislation to say that “now that these accommodations are in place, disabled voters don’t need access to absentee voting.” That certainly isn’t the case. This legislation fixes just one barrier to voting in person.

One parallel that comes to mind is curbside voting: sometimes, curbside voting is posed as an alternative to making the polling place accessible. However, election officials are still legally required to make polling places accessible. Curbside voting should be an option or accommodation, not be offered in place of polling place accessibility. 

So: I hope this bill passes because these are important accommodations, and they will improve accessibility for disabled voters in the polling place. But we must ensure that the existence of these important accommodations (if they end up being passed into law) aren’t used to argue that disabled voters no longer need access to absentee/mail voting. We must preserve access to all forms of voting. 

That's it for this week's edition of The Accessible Voting Booth! As always, if you’d like to support the newsletter and my work, here’s how:

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