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A Ballot You Can't Read

Last updated on 
A hand-drawn ballot whose text has turned into blocks of pixels under a magnifying glass.

Kentucky, 2026 general election

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Update, September 30, 2026: The State Board of Elections replied the day after my letter, and its IT staff have remediated the sample ballots. I tested Pendleton County's updated file with VoiceOver this morning, and it now reads aloud race by race, with every candidate, party and the full text of Amendment 1 in order. The file has real headings and lists, so a screen reader user can move through it the way a sighted voter scans the page. Thank you to Heather Quinn and the Board's IT staff. I've only tested Pendleton's file, so the quick test below is still worth running on your own county's ballot. What follows is the post as I first wrote it, on September 28.

Before every election, Kentucky publishes a sample ballot for each county: every race, every candidate, every question, exactly as they'll appear. It's the best way to prepare. For voters who read with a screen reader, it says almost nothing.

What's in the file

The sample ballots are posted by the Secretary of State, and county clerks share them locally. I checked the one for Pendleton County, the file the state provides for November 3, looking at what a computer can actually read in it.

The only real text in the file is the legal notice across the top and the list of precincts under each block. Everything a voter needs is a picture of text: every office, every candidate's name, and the full wording of Constitutional Amendment 1, pasted in as 22 separate images.

To a screen reader, that means the page announces a legal notice and a list of precinct names, then goes silent where the ballot should be. A search for any candidate's name finds nothing. So does a search engine.

It isn't just Pendleton. Fayette County's file, five pages for Lexington's much longer ballot, is built the same way: 40 images, with no candidate's name, no Amendment 1 text, and none of Lexington's three charter amendments readable as text. Two very different counties, one pattern, which points to how the files are produced statewide.

Why it matters

A sample ballot is how a voter decides before walking in. For a voter who is blind or has low vision, it's the only way to read the ballot at their own pace, at home, with time to look things up. That matters most for the longest items, like a constitutional amendment, which few people want to read for the first time in the booth.

The same files are also unreadable to translation tools, to anyone who needs large print, and to the people and organizations who try to make election information easier to find. An image of text is the hardest format to adapt.

The obligation is already clear. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, state and local governments must communicate as effectively with people with disabilities as with everyone else, and a newer federal rule sets a specific accessibility standard, WCAG 2.1 AA, for their websites and documents. Election information is where that obligation matters most.

Who can fix it

The County Clerk's office confirmed what the file suggests: the county posts what the state sends. That puts the fix upstream, with the office that produces the files. The good news is that the fix is probably small. The ballot text almost certainly already exists in the system that creates these images. Publishing it as real text, whether as a tagged PDF, a text layer beneath the images, or a plain web page beside each file, would make every county's ballot readable at once.

On September 28, I wrote to the Kentucky State Board of Elections with these findings, and asked two things: whether an accessible format is planned for this election, and who at the Board handles accessibility for voter materials. I'll update this page when I hear back.

What you can do now

  • Read Pendleton's ballot as text. I've transcribed it, checked it against the County Clerk's office, and posted it as a readable version: every race, every candidate, the full text of Amendment 1, and a precinct table.
  • Test your own county. Open your county's sample ballot from the Secretary of State, press Command+F or Ctrl+F, and search for a candidate's name. If nothing is found, the file is an image, and it's worth telling your County Clerk and the State Board.
  • Know your options at the polls. Every polling place must have at least one voting system that voters with disabilities can use privately and independently. You may also bring someone to help you vote, anyone except your employer or a union officer. For accessible absentee options, ask your County Clerk.
  • Make one for your county. The Ace the Midterms hub shows how to turn a sample ballot into text in an afternoon. If you do, tell me, and I'll link it.

None of this is anyone's idea of a scandal. It's a file format, chosen long ago and never questioned. Which is exactly why it's worth questioning now, before the next ballot goes out the same way.

Sources

  • Kentucky Secretary of State, county sample ballots for the November 3, 2026 general election (Pendleton and Fayette files, checked September 28, 2026)
  • Pendleton County Clerk's office, correspondence, September 2026
  • Americans with Disabilities Act, Title II; U.S. Department of Justice, web and mobile accessibility rule for state and local governments
  • Help America Vote Act of 2002, accessible voting systems requirement; Voting Rights Act, Section 208, assistance for voters
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