Alaska did not provide accessible voting for those with disabilities, US Justice Department alleges
ANKERAGE, Alaska — The state of Alaska has violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to provide accessible machines for in-person voting, the U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday. The state was also blamed for selecting inaccessible polling stations and operating a state election website that is not accessible to everyone.
The department informed Carol Beecher, Alaska’s elections chief, in a letter Monday that the state “must, at a minimum, implement corrective actions to bring its voting services, programs and operations into compliance.”
Beecher did not return an email or phone call to The Associated Press seeking comment on Tuesday.
The state has until July 1 to respond to resolutions at the Justice Department. Failure to reach a resolution could lead to a lawsuit, the letter to Beecher said.
The federal investigation began after complaints about several voting locations during regional education board elections last October and for state and federal elections in August and November 2022.
For the education elections, two voters complained that only paper ballots were used and no enlargement device was available. Another voter with a disability that makes it difficult to walk, move, write and talk struggled to fill out paperwork but was not offered assistance, the letter said. There was no accessible voting machine.
In state and federal elections, not all early voting and Election Day locations had accessible voting machines. In some places, the machines didn’t work and poll workers couldn’t fix them. At one location the voting machine was still unassembled in the shipping box.
The letter also claims that poll workers at at least one polling place reported receiving training on the machines but were still unable to operate them.
A blind voter said the audio on an accessible voting machine was unrecognizable during the August 2022 primary and had to use a paper ballot. That machine, the letter claims, was still not ready for the general election three months later.
The investigation also found that the state’s website was not usable by people with disabilities. Barriers found on the state’s online voter registration page included missing headings, unusable buttons, language-enabled videos without captions and audio descriptions, and images without accompanying alt text.
Many voting sites of the 35 Justice Department officials surveyed during the August 2022 primary election were inaccessible for various reasons, including a lack of van parking, driveways without handrails and entrances without level landings or that were too narrow.
At a minimum, the state must provide an accessible voting system in all elections and at every location where in-person voting takes place, the letter said. It must also make its online election information more accessible and remedy any physically accessible shortcomings at polling stations.