Justice Department officials have found Alaska in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), by failure to provide an accessible ballot for in-person voting, maintaining an inaccessible polling places for federal, state and local elections, and maintaining an inaccessible elections website.
Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, in the agency’s Civil Rights Division, said on June 17 that for too long people with disabilities have been denied the fundamental rights and freedoms of other citizens, including the opportunity to vote privately and independently like everyone else.
The Justice Department has given the state until July 1 to contact the trial attorneys handling this investigation with their position for a voluntary resolution.
The department opened its investigation in response to complaints from individuals with disabilities in Alaska alleging accessibility issues. The agency said that voters with disabilities told them they could not vote privately and independently because accessible voting machines were unavailable or did not work, that they encountered inaccessible polling places, and that they could not obtain key election information on the state’s election website.
In its 10-page public record of findings issued to the state, the Justice Department detailed its findings and asked the state to resolve identified civil rights violations. Those findings include the state’s failure to provide functional accessible voting machines, to provide polling places without physical barriers — such as muddy parking lots or steps that allow those with disabilities to vote in person — and to ensure accessibility of the website where voters with disabilities can obtain election information including registration forms, candidate statements and voting dates and polling place locations.
The investigation was prompted by complaints from voters with disabilities from across Alaska, who stated that during elections in 2020 and 2022 the accessible machines were not operational when they arrived at polling places, and, for some, poll workers were unable to make the accessible machines operational.
During the August and November 2022 elections, accessible voting machines were inoperable for part of the day at several sites, while at many polling places accessible voting machines were set up but not operational. In at least one polling place the machine was unassembled in its shipping box.
At some locations poll workers had no training on operating the accessible voting machines and at other poll locations poll workers reported that they received training, but still could not operate the accessible voting machines or correct errors. One voter who is blind tried to vote on an accessible machine during the August 2022 primary, but the audio was not recognizable and the printer did not work, so the voter had to vote using a paper ballot with assistance from a poll worker. In November 2022 the voter again found that the accessible machine at his polling place was inoperable. He went to another precinct to use an accessible machine but found the audio difficult to understand and could not get the attention of a poll worker for assistance. The voter is unsure if his ballot was properly counted.
Justice Department officials said the state’s website barriers for people with disabilities include access for those with print, vision, hearing and manual disabilities. Barriers found on the voter registration pages include: no headings, inoperable buttons, no instructions for progress links, low color contrast, pages limited to landscape, pages that do not scale properly, no language tag, inadequate error alerts, and no instructions explaining different options. Other barriers on the Alaska website include language assistance videos without captions and audio descriptions, and graphics without alternative text associated with them.
Although many of the non-compliant elements could be addressed with temporary measures to make them compliant with the 2010 ADA standards, few temporary measures were in use during these elections, the agency said.
District of Alaska U.S. Attorney S. Lane Tucker said that her office will continue to collaborate with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to work toward accessibility in voting for all Alaskans.
