An election that some of your members cannot take part in is not a complete election. This page describes what The Voting Vault does today to keep voting usable for people who use screen readers, keyboards, magnification or other assistive technology — and, just as importantly, what we have not finished yet.
The standard we target
We build and test against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA. That is the target we are working toward across the voter-facing product. We have not commissioned an independent accessibility audit, so we describe WCAG 2.1 AA as our target rather than as a finished result. If your organisation requires an audited statement for a tender, please contact us and we will tell you honestly where we stand.
What is covered today
These surfaces are exercised by automated accessibility checks that run on every change, so a regression fails the build rather than reaching a voter:
- The voter ballot. Every candidate control carries an accessible name taken from the candidate, the options for one office are grouped and announced as a set, the controls are reachable and operable from the keyboard, and the ballot announces itself to a screen reader once it has loaded. A structural check on the rendered ballot page asserts a single page heading, a declared page language, a text alternative on every image, and an accessible name on every visible form control.
- Election results. Every results table carries a caption naming the office it reports, so the figures are readable in table form and not only from the charts.
- Signing in. The voting-code entry and the sign-in dialogs have labelled fields and named close buttons.
- Vote verification. The public “check my vote was counted” page is covered by the same checks.
- The public site — including pricing, features and the sample ballot — carries a text alternative on every image, and the navigation toggle used on small screens is named.
Known gaps
These are real, current limitations. We publish them because a statement without them tells a procurement reviewer nothing.
- No independent audit. Our checks are automated and structural. No third-party auditor and no formal screen-reader test matrix (JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver) has signed off on the product.
- Colour contrast has not been measured across the site. Our automated checks read the page structure, not its rendered colours, so contrast ratios are unverified outside of spot checks.
- The ballot needs JavaScript. The ballot is assembled in the browser, and there is no non-JavaScript fallback. A voter with scripting disabled will not see a ballot.
- Result charts have no text alternative of their own. The pie and bar charts are drawn by a third-party charting library into a container that is not described to a screen reader. The same figures are always available in the captioned results table directly above each chart, which is what assistive technology will read.
- The election-administrator area is not held to the same bar. Some images in the administrator screens — candidate photo placeholders, logo and profile previews — are still rendered without a text alternative. Voting itself is unaffected; this concerns the people who build and run an election.
- The site is published in English only. Ballot content is shown in whatever language you enter it in, but the surrounding interface is not translated.
How to ask for help, or report a barrier
If any part of voting is difficult or impossible for you, tell us and we will help you cast your vote and fix the barrier. Please include the election name, the page you were on, and the assistive technology and browser you were using, so we can reproduce it.
- Email support@thevotingvault.com
- Or use our contact form
Election administrators: if a voter in your election needs an accommodation, contact us and we will work with you directly for the duration of the vote.
Last reviewed
This statement was last reviewed on 22 August 2026. We review it whenever the voter-facing product changes materially, and we update the gaps above as they are closed.