Summary
The Colorado Department of State (Department) is working to make sure all services, programs, and activities are accessible to provide equal access to information and services to all Coloradans.
The Department follows the web accessibility guidelines of the Governor’s Office of Technology (OIT), which are in accordance with technical standards provided by:
- World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level A/AA,
- Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act of 1973 Chapters 3,4,6 , and
- Sections 24-85-101, 24-85-102, 24-85-103, & 24-85-104, C.R.S.
As of December 20, 2024, the Department’s website is 100% accessible based on SiteImprove. The Department continues to update and improve accessibility to its website, prioritizing highly trafficked and public-facing pages and documents.
Progress
In an ongoing effort to make its online presence accessible, the Department continues to prioritize, evaluate, remediate, and continuously improve every digital touchpoint within its services, programs, and activities.
Below are the measures that the Department has undertaken, and is continuing to undertake, to improve accessibility in our online presence.
Organizational measures and status
- Define an accessibility roadmap including goals, roles, responsibilities, and policies as needed for the Department.
- Complete.
- Maintain an inventory of technology, prioritize the accessible needs of the technology, update the technology for accessibility, and validate through testing and address issues found in current technology.
- Complete: Maintain an inventory of technology and prioritize updates for accessibility.
- In process: Update the outward facing technology for accessibility 92% complete; improve accessibility for non-public facing application (internal applications) 35% complete; manually test outward facing technology for accessibility; SiteImprove continuous testing of external site for accessibility.
- Acquire technology to meet accessibility testing needs and to support accessible online meetings, presentations, and videos.
- Complete: SiteImprove, Browser Stack, JAWS for testing; AblePlayer for embedding videos; Zoom for online public meetings and presentations; Adobe In-Design for creation of material; Teams & Zoom for captions and transcriptions.
- Determine when compliance requirements would result in an undue burden, undue, hardship, fundamental alteration, or direct threat.
- Complete and ongoing: see, EEAAP Plan.
- Create and implement a plan for providing reasonable accommodation and modification until the technology can be made accessible.
- Complete and ongoing: EEAAP Plan.
- Create and publish a policy for external individuals and entities to file accessible documents with the Department.
- Complete: Policy for filing accessible documents.
- Provide contact information for receiving accessibility feedback and accommodation requests.
- Create a tracker for accessibility feedback and requests.
- Complete.
- Train current and incoming Department staff on providing accessible services and technology, drafting accessible documents, and conducting accessible online meetings
- Complete and ongoing.
- Incorporate accessibility requirements into the Department’s technology development stages including design, development, user experience, and quality assurance.
- Complete and ongoing.
- Sent letters to Department’s vendors regarding CO’s accessibility requirements (12/17/2024).
- Create and post on front-facing webpages a progress report that is updated annually and demonstrates concrete and specific efforts toward compliance with the OIT rules.
- Complete (current page).
- Previous reports.
- Maintain an inventory of documents/pages on the Department’s website, prioritize the accessible needs of the documents and pages, update the documents and pages for accessibility, and validate through testing and address issues found in current documents and pages.
- Complete: Inventory list and priority list.
- In process: Update active documents and pages for accessibility.
- Business & Licensing Division: 98.4% complete (1391 documents processed out of 1412).
- Elections Division: 98.63% complete (15,212 processed out of 15,422).
- Administration Division: 100% complete (5,527 documents processed out of 5,527).
- Receive an 80% accessibility score or higher for website accessibility, as tested by SiteImprove, for the Department’s website, regardless of pages or documents that are not in “active use” or pages that would require the Department to take an action that would fundamentally alter the nature of its programs, services, or activities, impose an undue burden or undue hardship, or pose a direct threat to the health or safety of others. [1]
- Complete (4/11/2024).
- Current site improvement score: 100% (06/01/2025).
- Procurement and vendor management: integrate accessibility criteria across the Department’s solicitation, evaluation and contract processes and use these integrated processes to improve the accessibility of the Department’s product/service offerings.
- Complete and ongoing.
- Human Resources: include accessibility skills in the Department’s job descriptions and hiring process, supervise department-wide accessibility training, set accessibility goals, and track progress through performance evaluations.
- Complete and ongoing.
Last updated on June 30, 2025.