Accessible Voting Technology: Analysis and Recommendations
Deb Cook
Mark Harniss

Center for Technology and 
Disability Studies
Goal
•	To provide guidance about how to develop more accessible and useable electronic voting systems based on:
–	Review of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG Draft 1.1)
–	Review of relevant standards and guidelines (e.g., Section 508)
–	Observation of past, present and prospective future voting systems 
Outcome
•	Generated a report for the ITIF Accessible Voting Technology Initiative:
 
–	http://elections.itif.org/reports/AVTI-004-Cook-Harniss-2012.pdf
Voting Systems Reviewed 
Vendor Presentations Attended
•	Democracy Live: http://www.democracylive.com/
•	Dominion: http://www.dominionvoting.com/
•	ES&S (Election Systems and Software): http://www.essvote.com/HTML/home.html
•	Everyone Counts: http://www.everyonecounts.com/
•	eVOTZ: http://www.evotz.com/
•	Helios: http://heliosvoting.org/
•	IVS: http://www.ivsllc.com/
•	Microvote: http://www.microvote.com/
•	Open Voting Consortium: http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/
•	Oregon Secretary of State Elections Division: http://oregonvotes.org/
•	Prime III: http://www.primevotingsystem.com/
•	Scantregrity: http://www.scantegrity.org/
•	Scytl: http://www.scytl.com/
•	Unisyn: http://www.unisynvoting.com/
Organization
•	VVSG 1.1 is organized by disability, we organized by functional feature groupings:
–	Operability
–	Adjustability
–	Discernability
–	Understandability
–	Usability Testing
Analysis
•	For each functional category, we 
–	describe the associated VVSG requirements, 
–	describe their purpose, 
–	provide analysis about the extent to which requirements are being met in current or proposed voting systems, 
–	and offer recommendations for improvement of the requirements and implementation strategies.
Example: Operability 
•	Accessing the Machine: Approach and Physical Space
Example: Adjustability
•	Font, Contrast, and Color Adjustment
Example: Discernibility
•	Function and status of controls and keys
Example: Understandability
•	Availability and clarity of instructions
Example Usability Testing
Conclusions
•	Current guidelines were too specific for certain disabilities and vague for others.
–	Increased emphasis will be intellectual disabilities.
•	Guidelines and practices should not be focused on existing technology. 
–	If we tell you that putting a nib on the 5 key makes it accessible, you may choose to eliminate the keypad and avoid the requirement. Is that product accessible?

Recommendations
•	Develop functional, rather than disability specific, guidelines
•	Expand usability testing requirements
•	Engage in additional research and development