Accessibility

Our position

We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at level AA. To be clear about status: we have not completed a formal third-party accessibility audit, and we do not claim conformance. Saying otherwise would be easy and untrue.

What we have done

• Semantic HTML with proper headings, labelled form fields and meaningful link text.
• Keyboard operation of the voting flow, with visible focus indicators.
• Status and error messages announced to assistive technology rather than conveyed by colour alone.
• Layouts that reflow on small screens and tolerate text scaling.
• Colour palettes chosen for contrast, including choices that remain distinguishable for common forms of colour vision deficiency.

Known gaps

• Identity verification is inherently visual and physical. It requires capturing a document and a selfie, and a liveness step. This will be difficult or impossible for some members with visual or motor impairments without assistance.
• One liveness check uses speech recognition and is unavailable in some browsers, notably Safari on iOS.
• Some administrative screens are dense — data tables and the live results wall in particular — and are not yet optimised for screen readers.
• No formal audit or assistive-technology test matrix has been completed.

If you cannot vote because of a barrier

Contact your organisation’s election administrator, who can arrange a supervised alternative — and please tell us too. Describe the barrier, your device and the assistive technology you use. We treat a member being unable to cast a vote as a serious defect, not a feature request.

Organisations running elections on PollGuard should plan an assisted or supervised route for members who need one. That obligation sits with the organisation, and we will help you design it.