The Justice Department announced its findings that Alaska Division of Elections violated Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to provide an accessible ballot for in-person voting, selecting inaccessible polling places for federal, state, and local elections and for maintaining an inaccessible elections website.
The ADA requires that states’ voting services, programs and activities be accessible to individuals with disabilities.
For REAA elections in Alaska — the rural unorganized boroughs for education board elections — the Justice Department complains that the state does not provide an accessible voting machine in any polling station and only provides paper ballots with offers of assistance from poll workers.
“Voters with disabilities faced obstacles voting in the October 2023 REAA election in which only paper ballots were available. One voter with a vision disability, after being told that no magnification device was available, required assistance to vote using a
paper ballot. Another voter with disabilities who has difficulty walking, moving, writing, and talking struggled to complete the paperwork but poll workers failed to offer any assistance. Both voters stated that they would have preferred voting on an accessible machine, privately andindependently, but no accessible machine was available,” the complaint says.
“During federal and state elections, the State offers absentee in-person and Election Day voting. It provides in-person early voting in Juneau, the Anchorage area (Anchorage, Wasilla, Eagle River, and Palmer), Fairbanks, Nome, Homer, and Soldotna. Although the state claims that it provides accessible machines during early voting and on Election Day, not all early voting
and Election Day sites had an accessible machine and at some sites the accessible machine was not operational. The State does not provide accessible voting machines at absentee in-person voting sites,” the Justice Department complaint said.
“For too long, people with disabilities have been denied the fundamental rights and freedoms that citizens of our democracy possess, including the opportunity to fully participate in the voting process,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Justice Department is fully committed to enforcing the ADA to make sure that individuals with disabilities have an equal opportunity to vote, including by voting privately and independently like everyone else.”
“Voting is a fundamental right for all American citizens and ensuring they have full access to the election process is a hallmark of our democracy,” said U.S. Attorney S. Lane Tucker for the District of Alaska. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to collaborate with the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to work toward accessibility in voting for all Alaskans.”
The department opened its investigation in response to complaints from individuals with disabilities in Alaska alleging accessibility issues.
Voters with disabilities reported that they could not vote privately and independently because accessible voting machines were unavailable or did not work, that they encountered inaccessible polling places and that they could not obtain key election information on the state’s election website.
The Alaska investigation is part of the department’s ADA Voting Initiative, which focuses on protecting the voting rights of individuals with disabilities across the country.
