Elections - Open Data, AI, and Accessible Technology

Countries worldwide increasingly rely on technology to organize elections, from biometric voter registration and electronic voting machines to machine readable vote tabulation systems. The design of these tools has a direct impact on accessibility for voters and poll workers with disabilities.

Please join Rylin Rodgers, Disability Policy Director at Microsoft, and Virginia Atkinson, Senior Global Inclusion Advisor at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) for a discussion on the future of accessible election technology and a new database —a community‑informed effort to catalog accessibility features across a wide range of election technology products. The database will provide evidence-based data for advocacy by organizations of persons with disabilities, support election officials in procurement, guide observers and media in evaluating technologies, and help technology providers communicate capabilities.

Because election technology evolves rapidly, the database is designed as a living resource. In addition to creating an open-source database of existing election technology options, this initiative seeks to identify accessible technologies that have not yet been used in elections but have the potential to be adapted for this purpose. Rylin and Virginia will discuss what might be possible in the near future as technology continues to evolve and how to not miss opportunities arising from AI.

Please join us for a discussion on accessible election technology and be ready to share examples of assistive technology that you think should be deployed in the elections context!

For livestream: https://youtube.com/live/R0pO3FNFxoA?feature=share

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