Accessibility

This website is run by the Electoral Commission. We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. For example, that means you should be able to:

• zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
• navigate most of the website using just a keyboard
• navigate most of the website using speech recognition software
• listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

We know some parts of this website aren’t fully accessible:

• guidance for electoral administrators, parties and campaigners, and candidates and agents, is currently provided in PDF format only. These PDFs are not fully accessible
• many older PDF and Word documents are not currently accessible
• Tableau charts are not accessible. For example, it is not possible to zoom to 200% without experiencing rendering issues, and they can’t be interacted with using a keyboard

We are working to make these documents and charts fully accessible. In the meantime, please contact us if you need this information in an accessible format.

If you need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille:

• fill out our contact us form
• call 0333 103 1928

We’ll consider your request and get back to you as soon as possible.

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, please contact us.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

If you are based in Northern Ireland and are not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equalities Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI).

Our offices have audio induction loops. Please get in touch before you visit us if you have access needs.

Find out how to contact us

The Electoral Commission is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Issues with PDFs and other documents

Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards - for example, they may not be marked up so they’re accessible to a screen reader.

Some of our PDFs and Word documents are essential to providing our services. For example, we have guidance documents published as PDF and Word documents. By September 2020, we plan to replace them with accessible HTML pages.

The accessibility regulations don’t require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we don’t plan to fix older report documents.

Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Issues with interactive tools and transactions

Charts and tables built in Tableau do not currently meet accessibility.

There are contrast issues within the Tableau element and rendering issues when zoomed to 200%.

Users hover over segments of the graphs to reveal additional content. This content can’t be dismissed with the keyboard and is not hoverable or persistent.

Tableau charts and tables are not keyboard accessible. We plan to review Tableau’s accessibility capabilities by September 2020. If Tableau cannot meet accessibility requirements, we will review other accessible options.

This website was last tested on 24 July 2019. The test was carried out by Zoonou.

We tested:

• our main website platform, available at www.electoralcommission.org.uk
• 24 templates
• 10 documents
• five user journeys across six user journey combinations

Read the full accessibility test report.