Accessibility
Accessibility
Access for people with disabilities – accessibility – is a legal right. It’s covered by federal and state laws from the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) to the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). When we talk about accessibility, we are talking about removing barriers to participation—or not creating them in the first place.
The goal is to close the stubbornly persistent participation gap between people with and without disabilities. Research published at the EAC shows that between 2016 and 2020, the percentage of voters with a disability grew from 55.9% to 61.8%. But there’s still a 5.7% difference to the 67.5% participation rate for voters without a disability.
Our work in accessibility includes research aimed at practical steps to remove barriers for voters with disabilities, collaboration with advocates and election offices to make all election information accessible, and working on accessible voting systems and vote-by-mail.
Research
Practical steps towards full accessibility for voters with disabilities
People with disabilities make up over 40 million eligible voters and continue to face barriers to participation at twice the rate of voters without disabilities. This report covers new ways to work towards full access for voters with disabilities that bring election officials, voters, and disability community leaders together.
Designing an accessible RCV ballot
In 2020, we conducted research to support voters with disabilities using RCV ballots. This led to new best practices for designing accessible RCV ballots.
Principles and guidelines for remote ballot marking systems
Requirements and principles for systems that are both secure and accessible.
Ensuring voting access across the electorate
Ensuring voting access across the electorate, originally published in the Journal of Election Administration, Research and Practice (JEARP), Special Issue 2025.
Tools
Creating accessible online information
The people who come to your website have a wide range of needs. When we talk about making websites and…
Creating accessible forms for print and PDF
This toolkit brings together 5 resources to help you build accessible PDF forms.
Poll worker training assisting voters with disabilities
A training guide and slide presentation to help election officials prepare poll workers to assist voters with disabilities.
A protocol for usable accessibility testing for voting systems
A step-by-step protocol for testing whether voting systems let voters with disabilities vote privately and independently.
First steps for accessibility testing
A practical guide for making election technology accessible — from online voter registration to electronic poll books. Covers the POUR principles, a layered testing approach, and free tools to check text contrast, keyboard navigation, and more.
Projects
Anywhere Ballot
The research focused on prototyping an accessible, responsive, Web standards-compliant front end for ballot marking that would be accessible to voters with low literacy (a previously ignored voter audience) or who had mild cognitive disabilities. The final ballot interface is based on principles of “plain language” and “plain interaction.”
The ideas from this research and the larger project it was a part of, Anywhere Ballot, have been used in several voting systems.
AccessibleVoting.net
Accessible Voting helps you find ways to cast your ballot with the options you need for a successful voting experience. This site contains the details of accessible voting in your state, including early voting, voting in-person on Election Day, mail voting, and accessible vote-by-mail tools for people with print disabilities.
- An article about the project on the Center for Civic Design’s website
- An article on making elections more accessible in Microsoft on the Issues
- A post from development partners Coforma.io on future-proofing the site
Accessible voting systems
We research and create guidance materials for the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG 2.0) to ensure that all voters can vote independently and privately.
Read our research on voting systems.
CCD houses the research archive from the Accessible Voting Technology Initiative (AVTI).
Related Resources
Stories of people with disabilities
- Personas of people with disabilities – From the book A Web for Everyone
- Helping voters who have extraordinary abilities – from the Anywhere Ballot research
- Understanding Voting Experiences of People with Disabilities – by Jon Sanford, Frances Harris and others at Georgia Tech’s CATEA
- Stories of Web Users – from the W3C resource on how people with disabilities use the web
Articles from CCD
- The new rule on accessibility: Not as hard as you think!
- Testifying to the PCEA: Accessibility as a driver for innovation
- Tips for building accessible Microsoft Word docs and PDFs
- Helping voters who have extraordinary abilities
- Build for Everyone: Accessibility, the future, and why Domino’s matter ArsTechnica (2019)
- Why accessibility should be at the center of your work – Participatory Budgeting (2017)
- Accessible Voting in 2012. by Whitney Quesenbery, Information Technology and Disabilities Journal, XIII:1 (April 2013)
Reports on the accessibility of the voter experience
- Promoting Access to Voting: Recommendations for Addressing Barriers to Private and Independent Voting for People with Disabilities – A report from NIST in response to Executive Order 14019, (NIST SP1273)
- Access Denied: Barriers to Online Voter Registration for Citizens with Disabilities – Accessibility analysis of online voter registration websites from ACLU and the Center for Accessible Technology (2015)
Book: A Web for Everyone: Designing accessible user experiences
A book by Whitney Quesenbery and Sarah Horton published by Rosenfeld Media.
Free tools from around the web
These are just a few of the free tools that we love and use, but there are many others out there.
Color contrast checkers
- Tanaguru Contrast Finder
- WebAIM Color Contrast Checker
- Snook Color Contrast Check
- Color Safe – Accessible Color Palette Creator
Accessibility standards
© 2025 Center for Civic Design