Accessibility

Election Access is intended to be user-friendly and accessible for everyone. The website features, and how to use them, can be found below.

ElectionAccess.org meets Section 508 standards as outlined by the U.S. Rehabilitation Act, as well as level AAA of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.

Changing text size and background color

To adjust the text size on this website, click on the letter A with a minus (-) or plus (+) sign at the top right corner (shown circled in gold below). The letter A with a minus (-) sign will make the text smaller while the letter A with a plus (+) sign will make the text larger.

Election Access is available in two themes: a white background with dark-colored text, and a black background with light-colored text. To change background color, click on the “Change background” button at the top right corner and it will automatically switch the entire website to one of the two themes (shown in graphic below). To switch back to the original theme, click on the “Change background” button again.

Alt text for images

Alt text, short for “alternative text”, is a brief text description of an image’s content that can be used by screen readers to verbally describe the image. Alt text describes the content of the image, explaining visual details or providing a description of a graphic. All images used on ElectionAccess.org have alt text available.

Transcripts and captions for videos

Captions refer to text which appears in a video alongside any audio or visual elements. Captions follow the same timing as the speaker or narration. A transcript is a written record of the conversation in a video. A transcript has the same word-for-word content as captions but presented in a separate document. Election Access provides transcripts for all videos. The transcript below was published alongside its video.

If you prefer to turn on captions when watching a video, move the cursor over the video. A bar should appear at the bottom of the video image. On the right of the bar should be a box with the letters “CC” inside (shown inside a gold circle in the screenshot below). Clicking on the box labeled “CC” will provide you with the language options (if multiple languages in closed captioning are available) or, if only one language is available, will turn the captioning on immediately.

For additional settings controls for closed captioning, click on the “Settings” button (the wheel icon to the right of the CC button), click “Subtitles/CC” and then click “Options.” The “Options” menu allows you to customize closed captions by adjusting the font, the font color and size, the background color and size, and other aspects of the captions.