New Hampshire #PwDsVote 2016 Candidate Questionnaire & Voter Guide

Concord, New Hampshire, Feb. 8 – RespectAbility released its New Hampshire update to its first #PwDsVote 2016 Campaign Questionnaire for people with disabilities (PwDs). For the New Hampshire release, more than half of the presidential candidates from both sides of the aisle have responded to the questionnaire.

RespectAbility is nonpartisan and does not endorse candidates. The questionnaire is purely for educational purposes as voters go to the polls.

“Fully one-out-of-five voters have a disability, and 52 percent of likely voters have a loved one with a disability. There are 56 million Americans with disabilities, and we have the ability to determine who wins or loses elections,” RespectAbility President Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi said. “In the early voting states, there are 357,730 people with a disability in Iowa, 166,258 PwDs in New Hampshire, 680,038 PwDs in South Carolina and 357,035 PwDs in Nevada. Our community will play a major role in the outcome of this election, and it is vital for us to know where the candidates stand on our issues.”

The questionnaire asked all of the presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle to comment on 16 disability questions. Since the initial release prior to the Iowa caucuses, Gov. John Kasich has returned a response and former Gov. Jeb Bush has updated his response with additional information. Previously, former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders addressed all of the questions. Dr. Ben Carson and Gov. Chris Christie also filled out parts of the questionnaire.

“The candidates have dramatically different ideas about how to deal with the issues,” Mizrahi said. “It’s extremely important to read their full answers so that you can understand their important differences.”

Issues in the detailed questionnaire include employment, stigma, education, safety, transportation, housing, healthcare, foreign affairs, among others.

RespectAbility invited all of the candidates to complete the questionnaire in the days ahead in order to convey their policies and connect with voters with disabilities. RespectAbility will release a South Carolina and Nevada questionnaire before their pivotal elections. The questionnaire is being distributed to more than 50,000 people who care about disability issues, more than ten thousand of whom live in the early primary states and the heads of more than 100 national disability organizations, many of whom will share with their own lists. RespectAbility also is placing online ads sharing the questionnaire.