"I think we're being heard, but we're not being heard at the levels where we should be heard," Jones said. "That's going to take a lot more convincing. That's where myself and other advocates and aspiring advocates need to really come out and let the Legislature know that we're not going to really stand for this."...

A report published last month by a pair of Rutgers University professors found that the number of eligible voters with some sort of disability is on the rise both nationwide and in New York. Nationally, that group is projected to be 35.4 million people strong (roughly 16 percent of all voters) this year, and 16.4 million of them are projected to actually cast ballots. Compare that to 15.6 million people with disabilities who voted in 2012....

"People with disabilities have been called a sleeping giant or a sleeping tiger," said Lisa Schur, chair of the Rutgers Labor Studies and Employment Relations Department, who co-authored the study with Rutgers Management and Labor Relations professor Douglas Kruse. "Especially if there is a close election, the disability vote can make a difference."

In terms of pure politics, this large minority group may have little bearing on whether Democrats or Republicans are elected, given that Schur and Kruse have found that people with disabilities and those without disabilities show little difference in terms of partisanship. But there are issues that Schur and Kruse have found people with disabilities pay more attention to, perhaps making them more likely to vote for a candidate who would better address their needs. In particular, research has found that people with disabilities tend to say government should play a greater role in both job creation and health care.