VoteHound exists so that anyone can follow what Congress is doing. "Anyone" includes people who browse with a screen reader, navigate by keyboard, or need higher contrast — accessibility is part of the product, not an add-on.
Conformance target
We target WCAG 2.1 Level AA. VoteHound is currently partially conformant: the public pages — home, members, bills, committees, votes, elections, search, pricing, and the sign-in flows — pass automated WCAG 2.1 A/AA checks in both light and dark themes, and we are actively working through the remaining manual audits (screen-reader walkthroughs and the signed-in workspace surfaces).
What we do
- Color contrast is enforced at the design-token level — every text/background pairing in the palette, in both themes, is required to meet the 4.5:1 AA ratio, so a passing color can't quietly become a failing one on a new surface.
- Pages are built on semantic HTML landmarks with skip-to-content links, labeled form controls, and keyboard-operable dialogs, menus, and tabs that manage focus correctly.
- Every public page is scanned with axe-core (the engine behind most accessibility audit tools) in both themes as part of our development workflow, and new violations block changes from shipping.
- Dynamic updates — chat messages, notifications, async results — use ARIA live regions so screen readers announce them.
Known limitations
- Third-party documents: bill texts, hearing transcripts, and filings link to or embed documents published by congress.gov and other government sources; their internal accessibility is outside our control. Where we can, we surface the same information as native, structured text.
- District map: the interactive map is canvas-based and offers limited keyboard operability today. The underlying member and district information is fully available through the searchable members directory.
- Signed-in workspaces: collaborative features (shared workspaces, chat, annotations) are still undergoing their full audit; keyboard and screen-reader polish there may lag the public pages.
Tell us what's broken
If any part of VoteHound is difficult or impossible for you to use, we want to know — reports like these get fixed first. Email policy@votehound.com with the page address and a short description of what happened (including the browser and any assistive technology you were using, if you're comfortable sharing that). We read every report.
