Voting is already hard for people with disabilities. Voter ID laws make it even harder.

Disabled Americans often endure voting horror stories like voting booths that can't accommodate wheelchairs, or machines that don't work for visually impaired people. But some people with disabilities are simply blocked from polls in the first place, because of a growing number of voter identification laws.

These laws, warns Doug Kruse of Syracuse University, are a looming issue for disabled voters, for a simple reason: They’re generally less likely to have identification, an issue noted by the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups along with disability activists.

As of this year, 33 states require voters to present identification at the polls, potentially disenfranchising hundreds of thousands of people this election season. The Supreme Court helped enable this with a 2013 decision that struck down key components of the Voting Rights Act, triggering moves in states like Texas to implement voter ID laws.

It’s well-known that such laws disproportionately affect people of color and low-income people. According to the American Bar Association, the one in seven people in the US of voting age who have a disability lag behind at the polls considerably in contrast with their non-disabled counterparts.

These laws present yet another barrier to voting rights for an already disenfranchised community. Voting can lead to more disability-friendly policies and meaningful systemic changes, which could improve quality of life.

In the 2012 edition of the Pew Charitable Foundation’s Elections Performance Index, researchers found that 7.2 percent of registered voters with disabilities didn’t have photo identification, compared with 4.5 percent of their non-disabled counterparts. In an electoral landscape with a growing demand for voter ID, this represents a serious problem.

The disability-identification disconnect

One of the most common forms of identification in the United States is a driver’s license, which 86 percent of Americans of legal driving age have, though states also issue non-driver ID cards. In addition to these valid forms of identification, 15 million passports were issued in 2015, and the Department of Defense issues its own forms of identification for employees and some eligible family members. Other forms of acceptable voter identification can include government identification cards and identifications from public colleges and universities, depending on the state.

However, the unemployment rate is higher for disabled people in the government sector in general, and they’re also less likely to be involved in higher education due to barriers like cost and inaccessibility, reducing the chance that they will hold these forms of identification. Even in states where voters can theoretically get free voter ID cards, like Virginia, many of those sites are inaccessible to people with disabilities, said Susan Mizner, who works on these issues for the ACLU.

But the most common (and often most affordable) form of identification, driver’s licenses, are out of reach simply because members of the disability community are less likely to drive. Barriers to travel can make people with disabilities opt out of international travel, making passports unnecessary. While people with disabilities can and do hold passports, passport cards, and DOD identification cards, they’re less likely to, Mizner said.

Meanwhile, people applying for photo identification for the first time are required to submit a great deal of supporting documentation. Since the process can be quite costly, advocates refer to voter ID laws as a glorified "poll tax."

These documents include a valid Social Security card, proof of nationality such as a notarized birth certificate or certificate of naturalization, and name change documentation if an applicant’s name doesn’t match the name listed on other paperwork (after getting married or receiving a court-ordered name change, for example). Gathering such documents and applying for identification can be a time-consuming and pricey process for those who can’t afford it.

One in three people with disabilities live in poverty, often caught in what’s known as the "benefits trap." People receiving government benefits may want to work, as assistance rarely provides enough to live on, but doing so risks exclusion from Medicaid and Medicare eligibility. Thus, notes disability activist Alice Wong, people with disabilities are kept in a form of enforced poverty, which is of significant concern for many disabled voters in the 2016 election.

Empowering the disability vote

Disturbingly, very little information is available on voting habits and patterns in the disability community, says Jim Dickson of the National Council on Independent Living. This makes it difficult to fully understand how voter ID laws are interacting with overall disenfranchisement of disabled voters.

This year, Dickson worked on a tablet-based voting system for blind and visually impaired voters in New Hampshire, joining Missouri and several other states in updates to voting technologies to increase disabled voter participation. Researchers and activists have to rely on a handful of studies, some quite outdated, such as a 2013 joint white paper prepared by Kruse and fellow researcher Lisa Schur by request of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.

"People with disabilities are just left off the studies," often due to simple barriers to accessibility, Mizner told Vox. For example, she said she’s unaware of a voter access or opinion survey that includes deaf voters, who need to be accessed via TTY or video-conferencing services.

Without this information, it’s difficult for disability rights organizations to compile the necessary evidence to develop a unified strategy (like a class-action suit) to challenge barriers to electoral participation.

Ultimately, pushes to strike down voter identification laws will also benefit the disability community, one reason why Mizner is collaborating with other ACLU staffers on voting rights issues like unjust voter ID laws. In the short term, some states — including, surprisingly, Texas — have recognized the problem and created exceptions for disabled voters.

Schur and others face down a system with limited funding for exploration of issues like these, and some of that is the result of lack of social engagement with the disenfranchisement of disabled voters. With a group that represents such a large part of the electorate, this should be a critical concern — particularly because many people with disabilities lie at the intersections of race and class, experiencing the effects of voter suppression from multiple angles.