Online Voter Registration Leaves the Blind Behind in New York

The recent move toward online voter registration has been one small step for elections, maybe one slightly-less-than-medium step for democracy. The ability to register from the convenience of one’s home (provided that you have a computer) as opposed to commuting to and waiting in a DMV office makes a somewhat irksome activity less tedious. It also saves money for state and local officials on the election administration end, among many other benefits. Currently 31 states along with Washington, D.C., offer this service.

But if blind voters in your state aren’t able to participate because the websites are not accessible to them, then your state is doing online voter registration wrong. This is what the ACLU found in New York, where the state’s Board of Elections and Department of Motor Vehicles websites don’t operate with software that allows blind people to use them. Which is why the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the state agencies on June 9, for their failures to accommodate the disabled.