Colleagues,
It is an honor to address such a gathering of thought leaders. Access Ready Inc. is an independent, national nonprofit, cross disability, advocacy organization promoting a policy of inclusion and accessibility across information technology through education and best practices. So why are we here with VOTEC? Because they are the only pollbook developer who asked how to make their product accessible. They asked us to guide them and engage the National Association of the Deaf, The National Federation of the Blind and other organizations to help them develop accessible pollbook technology. So why when no other pollbook developer has even seriously considered pollbook accessibility? Simply put, VOTEC recognized that it is the law and the moral thing to do. With their leadership making pollbooks, other election and information technologies accessible has been proven not only to be possible, but readily accomplishable. Accessibility is no longer rocket science. The Americans with Disabilities Act, Title II, The Help America Vote Act, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and other Federal and state statutes do not make exceptions for pollbooks or any other technologies used by the government. Why haven't other pollbook developers worked to be accessible? Simply put, Secretaries of State and election officials have not required them to do so. They have chosen to ignore the law. Registration, Validation, Voting Must be a continuum of private and independent accessibility. I don't wish to be offensive, but professionals must be honest with each other. Access Ready and its national, state and local community partners will not stand by and allow any state or local election jurisdiction to buy inaccessible election technology of any kind including pollbooks. To be clear we as an organization do not care who you buy from as long as it is accessible to the blind, visually impaired, deaf and hard of hearing and those with dexterity motor skill disabilities at a minimum. You need to understand that because a vendor tells you they are accessible does not make it so. It is not something that happens by accident or because the hardware allows for it to be accessible. It happens by design and hard work that includes people with disabilities. That the technology meets the standards set under Section 508 and is tested and approved by local, state or national disability organizations. Do the same testing you did back when you were considering what accessible voting systems to buy. Access Ready will help you set up those testing relationships if you wish. What we will not do is allow voters with disabilities to be ignored.
