There are several important considerations for creating requirements for remote ballot marking systems based on differences between in-person and remote voting. The scope of voter activities is expanded during remote voting, so although many of the core accessibility requirements can be used directly, this white paper looked at how to adapt the voting-specific guidelines to a standard for accessible remote voting systems. 

Voting with a remote ballot marking system requires additional steps for voters that must meet the same accessibility requirements. Those steps may include:

• Activities to request and receive the ballot
• Printing the ballot on personal devices
• Packing the ballot to return (perhaps with assistance)

Voters interact with additional materials during the voting process, including instructions from the elections office, tools to mark and print the ballot, and (sometimes) the US Postal Service.

Remote ballot marking systems have an extra responsibility for voter privacy and ballot secrecy

A remote ballot marking system is not a closed system. Like a polling place ballot marking system, a remote ballot marking system should allow voters to mark their ballots without any connectivity or communication with a server. This helps ensure ballot secrecy in a way that a fully connected system cannot.

The voter provides the device, not the election office

At a polling place, the voting location device provides the assistive features (such as audio output) and hardware (for example, headsets). By contrast, with remote ballot marking, the voter chooses the context (location) and the voter’s system supplies the functions and hardware for accessibility. A remote ballot marking system must operate similarly to a general web or software application and allow assistive technology to work correctly through correct coding and common accessibility support.

Some VVSG requirements don’t apply, reducing the number needed for remote systems

Requirements specific to either the physical location or the equipment used to mark the ballot do not apply to remote ballot marking systems. The requirements that remain focus on user interface design, election requirements, voter privacy, and usability testing, many of which apply as written or with minor adjustments.

Remote voting systems also have to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0).

This report was authored by Lynn Baumeister and Whitney Quesenbery, Center for Civic Design. This work was performed by the Center for Civic Design in collaboration with NIST under prime contract 1333ND20FNB770277, subcontract 1029-136-47 from the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology.