Disenfranchised by Climate Change

The report examines the intersection of climate change and democratic processes, detailing how extreme heat, floods, and wildfires disrupt voter registration, polling access, and ballot counting. It provides evidence of recent climate-driven disruptions in the US, India, and Pakistan, and analyzes temperature anomalies in 60 countries during the 2024 election cycle. The authors advocate for systemic changes, such as flexible voting arrangements, improved risk mapping, and updated emergency statutes, to protect the fundamental right to vote on a warming planet.

• Extreme weather events create physical and logistical barriers to voting, including the destruction of polling places, blocked roads, power outages, and the loss of required identification due to displacement.
• Extreme heat during elections poses severe health risks to voters and poll workers, particularly for vulnerable groups such as older people, children, and those with pre-existing medical conditions.
• Climate change has significantly increased the frequency of billion-dollar disasters in the United States, reducing the recovery time between events from every two to three months in the 1980s to an average of every two weeks today.
• Recent elections have been directly impacted by climate-attributed weather: Hurricane Ian affected over 12% of Florida's registered electorate in 2022, and 2022 floods in Pakistan displaced nearly eight million people, hindering voter registration and access.
• Analysis of 60 countries holding nationwide elections between January and July 2024 shows that half experienced at least one week of climate-driven abnormal temperatures in the four weeks preceding election day.
• In the first seven months of 2024, 63 cities home to nearly 160 million people experienced abnormal temperatures in the month before their elections that were at least five times more likely due to human-caused climate change.
• To increase electoral resilience, the report recommends adopting flexible voting options such as same-day registration, online address updates, and expanded mail-in or electronic voting, citing Estonia's i-voting system and Colorado's multi-channel ballot return process as examples.

APA

Florini, K., & Hill, A. (2024). Disenfranchised by Climate Change. Climate Central. https://assets.ctfassets.net/cxgxgstp8r5d/3JW6t0IfLaB6JzDis8Pibq/23f37744cd395239afe0a32a412cf042/Disenfranchised_by_Climate_Change_final.pdf

Chicago

Florini, Karen, and Alice Hill. Disenfranchised by Climate Change. Climate Central, 2024. https://assets.ctfassets.net/cxgxgstp8r5d/3JW6t0IfLaB6JzDis8Pibq/23f37744cd395239afe0a32a412cf042/Disenfranchised_by_Climate_Change_final.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Florini |first1=Karen |last2=Hill |first2=Alice |title=Disenfranchised by Climate Change |publisher=Climate Central |date=September 2024 |url=https://assets.ctfassets.net/cxgxgstp8r5d/3JW6t0IfLaB6JzDis8Pibq/23f37744cd395239afe0a32a412cf042/Disenfranchised_by_Climate_Change_final.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{florini2024disenfranchised, author = {Florini, Karen and Hill, Alice}, title = {{Disenfranchised by Climate Change}}, institution = {Climate Central}, year = {2024}, month = sep, url = {https://assets.ctfassets.net/cxgxgstp8r5d/3JW6t0IfLaB6JzDis8Pibq/23f37744cd395239afe0a32a412cf042/Disenfranchised_by_Climate_Change_final.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }