On November 6, 2018, Jules Kellogg went to vote.

Recovering from a medical operation, the Fairway resident intended to use the features of the ADA-compliant poll location to reduce the amount of physical strain on voting day. But when she pulled into the parking lot, she was met with a new challenge: walking the entire perimeter of the building to reach the polling entrance.

“I really expected the handicap parking to be close to where the actual booths were,” she said. “When I was done voting, I had to walk all the way that length to get back out as well. I’m sure they had a ramp at the time, but there’s no way I could have gone up it, because I was barely rehabbed to walk at that point. I don’t know what people do who really cannot do that.”

What was supposed to be a routine first outing since her surgery became a logistical challenge that she couldn’t have anticipated before – her challenge wasn’t to cast her ballot, but became reaching the voting booth in the first place. Kellogg’s experience raises a question passed over by many able-bodied voters on election day: how accessible really is voting, beyond what the law requires?

Every election, Kansans with disabilities face similar often-overlooked challenges as Kellogg. Even though polling locations are federally mandated to ensure ADA compliance, many fail to meet these standards, rendering the voting experience burdensome and inaccessible for those with disabilities. On the other hand, recent state legislation such as Kansas Senate Bill 4 has restricted voting mail-in voting accessibility for those who face barriers voting in-person, in Kansas and beyond.

When Kellogg went to vote again in the 2024 election, she found that the only polling location with curbside voting available was far away from her home in Johnson County, leaving her feeling dehumanized and undervalued by polling officials.

“I remember feeling like less than, you know, just like not important—I don’t count, and also really old, and that was eight years ago, so [I was] significantly younger then. But you know, just like you got to be young and able-bodied for all the accesses in the world, you know, is how it feels sometimes,” said Kellogg.

Voting accessibility for disabled Americans is a relatively recent initiative in the United States. Institutional disability awareness began after soldiers left with disabilities returned to the US after serving abroad in World War II. For Lois Curtis Center director and Lecompton resident Ami Hyten, the irony lies in the fact that after fighting for freedom in theaters of war abroad, veterans weren’t physically able to vote on home soil.

“Here we are, 70 years later, and the reality is that access — in particular, access in polling places — because of where they generally have them, is not much better,” she said.

As a result of post-war awareness and advocacy, polling locations in the US are required to ensure that the facility, from the parking lot to the voting area, is accessible for disabled voters. Such requirements include designated accessible parking spaces, entrance ramps, adequately-wide voting booths, and clear signage for curbside voting. Even though locations are supposed to meet these requirements among others, many fail to do so, ultimately rendering the voting experience inaccessible.

For one, curbside voting is often treated as an afterthought in the busy implementation of many other election tasks. Ideally, voters drive up to polling locations, and election workers bring the voter a poll book, ballot, and other voting materials needed to cast a ballot. In theory, curbside voting allows voters to cast a ballot in-person with more physical ease, outside of a polling place or voting location – but the reality of a voter’s experience depends deeply on the details of execution.

Kellogg’s difficulties with curbside voting accommodations is far from unusual. According to an ACLU report from the Kansas primary on August 4th, out of an observed 120 polling locations, only 37 locations — or roughly 30% — offered curbside voting. At one location, a “supervising judge stated if a voter came in to request curbside [voting], she would have to find party representatives who aren’t [present].” At another, “signs noting the availability of curbside voting with the contact phone number were inside the building, on the door into the room where ballots were cast.” Another volunteer observer visited multiple locations and found the signage and phone number to call for assistance hard to read from the car for 30-year-old eyes, much less for someone who is elderly or vision-impaired.

From these firsthand accounts, it becomes clear that many polling places don’t even offer curbside voting. And some may theoretically offer curbside voting, but fall short of test-driving the experience to make it meaningfully usable for the voters who rely on it.

“We talk about the big barriers, like, you know, picture ID or whatever, whatever the current drama is around trying to keep people from voting, right?” asks Kellogg, a veteran herself. “All of the redistricting and all that stuff gets all the attention, but the attention doesn’t get to how hard it would be for the city to put a couple wheelchairs in voting places, you know, how hard would it be for somebody to stand outside [to help].”

And not all state disability voting practices are made equal. Many other Kansans rely on mail-in ballots, which allows voters to “vote by mail prior to election day in the State of Kansas,” but only after voters “complete an application for an advance ballot and include [their] driver’s license number or copy of [their] photo identification,” according to Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab. According to Hyten, those who need mail-in ballots, such as those who are blind or visually impaired, face the most challenges in actually procuring the ballots.

For Tom Page, Wichita resident and President of the Kansas Affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind, the biggest issue with mail-in voting is the specific print used on mail-in ballots.

Instead of using a more accessible writing format, mail-in ballots are usually supposed to be filled out with a pencil or pen, “leaving [blind or visually impaired people] out immediately,” he said.

Moreover, Page, who is blind, always has to recruit someone to read the ballot, help him fill it in, package it for the mail, and then drop it off at a voting booth. This not only defeats the purpose of mail-in voting, but also violates the inherent dignity of voting in private, said Page: mail-in ballots become a shared responsibility for a voter and non-voter.

“It feels like they’re dodging the law,” Page said.

This sentiment becomes especially strong when other states have proved that they can successfully implement mail-in voting practices for blind and visually impaired voters. For one, at a state convention that Page attended, he learned from a state representative that the paper mail-in ballots in Rhode Island offer a braille accompaniment, as well as electronic versions with digital submission options. Even if a voter needs a mail-in ballot for reasons other than a disability, such methods could prove incredibly useful in increasing voting accessibility, Page argues.

A common sentiment among Kellogg and Page, who have experienced barriers to voting in Kansas due to inadequate disability voting implementations is the feeling of being lesser, or neglected, compared to able-bodied voters, despite being part of a large demographic in their respective counties. While Page is glad that curbside voting practices are in place, he explained that the option isn’t something designed for blind or visually impaired voters.

“It just is this little thing that reminds you, or reminds me, as it were, that blind people, as a group, are still struggling to have mainstream [recognition] and get along with the systems of the world,” Page said. “That our privacy and independence seems to be completely unvalued by the state says a lot about what the expectations are culturally for us as a group, and so that part of it strikes against me in a way that leads me to want to advocate to make it change.”

Like Page, Hyten also advocates for the voting rights of those with disabilities. Shortly after President Biden’s election in 2020, she volunteered with the group Rideshare to Vote in Atlanta, Georgia, which provided rides to polling places for those with disabilities. A realization partially beget by her trip, Hyten said that the current accessibility issues surrounding curbside and mail-in voting do not pertain solely to voters with disabilities, but to everyone — regardless of their body.

“At some point in time, if you are lucky to live long enough, you will require accommodations,” Hyten said. “And if you think that you are going to deserve to vote when you’re 80, then you better make sure that all this is in place now and stays in place.”

For Hyten, Kellogg, and Page, improving and maintaining voting accessibility for voters with disabilities is not a task entirely allocated to disability advocates and representatives, but should be one prioritized by election officials and local government.

“If you want your constituencies to continue to be engaged, if you want people to continue to show up to the polls, you’re going to have to recognize that that access is an essential element of that — particularly given the inevitable demographic of our society,” Hyten said.