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The Importance of Accessible Online Voter Registration Historically, people with disabilities have faced enormous barriers to exercising their right to vote. Inaccessible polling locations and voting machines—as well as wholesale disenfranchisement of people with certain types of disabilities— have discouraged, and at times prevented, many citizens with disabilities from participating fully in the voting process. The Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 moved the United States a giant step forward in removing barriers to the vote. With the requirement of accessible polling places and accessible voting machines, HAVA promised full access to the ballot for people who had previously been unable to vote privately and independently. The ADA has also established the clear right of people with disabilities to equal access— especially equal access to government services. Title must ensure they are not II of the ADA requires state and local government entities to ensure that people with with disabilities. disabilities have an equal opportunity to participate in or benefit from all government programs, activities, and services. To fulfill this mandate, governments may need to make reasonable modifications to policies, practices, or procedures, or provide auxiliary aids and services. State and local governments creating barriers…for people In short, state and local governments must ensure they are not creating barriers—even unintentional ones—for people with disabilities. 6 ACCESS DENIED: BARRIERS TO ONLINE VOTER REGISTRATION FOR CITIZENS WITH DISABILITIES
Multiple states now provide for online voter registration. The Internet plays a central role in connecting Americans to information, government services, and opportunities for civic engagement. Just as physical accessibility means that people with disabilities can reach a sidewalk using a curb ramp or enter a building with an automatic door opener, web accessibility ensures that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with digital information. As more of the political process moves online, state governments need to ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind. When the web is accessible, many people with disabilities can communicate, interact, and participate online more easily than they can in the physical world. Online voter registration can, if done correctly, be an enormous service to many people with disabilities. THE CENTER FOR ACCESSIBLE TECHNOLOGY ACLU 7
Page 1: ACCESS DENIED BARRIERS TO ONLINE VO
Page 5 and 6: Contents Executive Summary ........
Page 7 and 8: Photo: Shutterstock So, what is an
Page 9: 2. Poor navigation between pages on
Page 13 and 14: Low Vision Users Most low vision us
Page 15 and 16: Blind users face several important
Page 17 and 18: Speech recognition technology allow
Page 19 and 20: Other Groups Affected by Website Ac
Page 21 and 22: The results of the review provide b
Page 23 and 24: • Alternate methods of voter regi
Page 25 and 26: 1. Inaccessible Forms and Screen Re
Page 27 and 28: a. Heading Structures Heading struc
Page 29 and 30: Figure 5 shows a page title from Oh
Page 31 and 32: Best Practices Often, these skip na
Page 33 and 34: • When the image is of text. The
Page 35 and 36: 5. Keyboard Accessibility For a web
Page 37 and 38: Best Practices Level AA of the Web
Page 39 and 40: 8. Tab Order Tab order is closely l
Page 41 and 42: States with online registration web
Page 43 and 44: Utah https://secure.utah.gov/voterr
Page 45 and 46: FIGURE 19 Form label example. There
Page 47 and 48: FIGURE 20 Incorrect use of HTML hea
Page 49 and 50: FIGURE 22 Incorrect form and sugges
Page 51 and 52: FIGURE 24 Incorrect use of “alt
Page 53 and 54: Recommendation Use form fieldset an
Page 55 and 56: THE CENTER FOR ACCESSIBLE TECHNOLOG
Page 57 and 58: Form Field A form field is a partic
Page 59 and 60: Tab Order/Index An assistive techno
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Full Online Registration (as of Jun
Page 63 and 64:
WCAG 2.0 provides for three levels
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12. For more detail, please see App
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