Accessibility Statement

1. Our Commitment

board-of-elections.org/ is built so that anyone — using any device, any browser, any assistive technology — can find their state election authority, register to vote, request a ballot, find a polling place, and use the site without barriers. Accessibility is not an afterthought. It is part of every editorial template, every CSS rule, every navigation pattern. We test against assistive technologies on every major page template before publication and on a quarterly cycle thereafter, with heightened review before federal general elections.

2. Standard: WCAG 2.1 Level AA

We work to the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA. This is the standard the U.S. Department of Justice has long used as the benchmark for ADA website accessibility. It covers four high-level principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust.

Practically, this means: text contrast meets minimums, all functionality is keyboard-accessible, page structure follows a logical heading hierarchy, every image has descriptive alt text, every form control has a programmatic label, focus indicators are visible, and the site degrades gracefully when JavaScript is unavailable or assistive technology is in use.

3. Legal Framework

4. HAVA Polling Place Accessibility — 52 U.S.C. § 21081(a)(3)

The Help America Vote Act includes a specific federal floor for polling place accessibility. Under 52 U.S.C. § 21081(a)(3), every polling place in federal elections must provide at least one voting system that is accessible to individuals with disabilities — including non-visual accessibility for the blind and visually impaired — providing the same opportunity for access and participation, including privacy and independence, as other voters.

Accessible voting systems typically include Ballot-Marking Devices (BMDs) with audio interfaces, sip-and-puff control, dual-switch control, and large print. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (eac.gov) coordinates voting system testing and certification. The U.S. Access Board (access-board.gov) provides technical assistance on polling place physical accessibility under both ADA and HAVA.

If you encounter an inaccessible polling place or accessible voting system that is broken or unavailable, the right channel is your county election office (first), the state election authority’s HAVA complaint process, the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division (justice.gov/crt), or the U.S. Access Board for technical guidance.

5. Specific Accessibility Features We’ve Built

6. Assistive Technology Compatibility

We test against the following combinations on every major page template before publication:

• NVDA + Firefox / Chrome on Windows
• JAWS + Chrome on Windows
• VoiceOver + Safari on macOS
• VoiceOver + Safari on iOS
• TalkBack + Chrome on Android
• Narrator + Edge on Windows (smoke test)
• Dragon NaturallySpeaking — voice-only navigation smoke test
• Browser zoom at 200% and 400%
• High-contrast mode in Windows and macOS

7. Known Limitations

• Some third-party advertising units may not always meet our internal standards. We work with our advertising partners and reject ad units that fail material accessibility checks.
• Embedded videos from third-party platforms inherit those platforms’ accessibility features (or limitations); we link to transcripts or captioning where the source provides them.
• Some legacy state-by-state pages built before our current accessibility framework may have minor remaining issues — we are working through them on a rolling quarterly review and welcome reports.
• Complex tables are designed to read well in screen readers; some particularly dense reference tables may benefit from a list-format alternative on request.

8. State Election Agency Portals & PDFs

If you cannot use a state election authority’s online portal or PDF form because of an accessibility barrier, you have rights under ADA Title II (42 U.S.C. § 12131), Section 504 (29 U.S.C. § 794), and HAVA’s polling place accessibility provisions (52 U.S.C. § 21081). The U.S. Department of Justice ADA portal is at ada.gov. The U.S. Access Board provides technical assistance at access-board.gov. You may also contact the agency’s ADA coordinator (every state agency receiving federal funds is required to designate one).

9. Reporting a Barrier

If you encounter a barrier — a page or feature that doesn’t work with your assistive technology, contrast that’s hard to read, a control that can’t be reached by keyboard, or anything else that gets in your way — please tell us. Reports drive our priority queue.

Email info@board-of-elections.org with subject line “Accessibility issue”.

If you can, include:

• The page URL where you hit the barrier
• Your operating system and browser
• The assistive technology you were using (e.g., NVDA, JAWS, VoiceOver, TalkBack, Dragon)
• What you were trying to do
• What happened (or didn’t happen)

10. Escalation

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have additional options:

• U.S. Department of Justice ADA portal — ada.gov
• U.S. Access Board (technical guidance, including HAVA polling place) — access-board.gov
• U.S. Election Assistance Commission (HAVA accessibility guidance) — eac.gov
• Federal Communications Commission accessibility (CVAA matters) — fcc.gov/accessibility
• Your state attorney general’s consumer protection or civil-rights division
• Your state human rights commission or equivalent
• Disability rights legal organisations in your state (most states have at least one Protection & Advocacy organisation funded under federal law)

11. Review Cycle

This statement is reviewed quarterly with heightened review in the 90 days before any federal general election. Page templates are re-tested against the AT combinations above on each review cycle. The “Last reviewed” date at the top reflects the most recent review.