What the rule means for a county
The Department of Justice's Title II web rule (28 CFR Part 35, Subpart H) requires state and local government web content and mobile apps to conform to WCAG 2.1 Level AA. An interim final rule effective April 20, 2026 extended the compliance dates by one year.
A county with a population of 50,000 or more must comply by April 26, 2027. A county under 50,000 has until April 26, 2028. Most rural counties are in the second group. Confirm your date with your county attorney.
Content that is unique to counties
- Property and recorder tools. Search portals for parcels, deeds, and tax statements are often third party and rarely tested with a keyboard.
- Elections information. Polling places, ballot information, and registration forms must be reachable by every voter.
- Road and weather notices. Alerts that rely on a color coded map or an image of text exclude people who cannot see it.
- Health and human services pages. Forms and eligibility information are used by people who are more likely to have a disability.
- Board of commissioners packets. Long PDF packets, often scanned, are the single biggest document problem.
- Maps and GIS. Interactive maps need a text alternative so the information is not locked in a picture.
The rural reality
A rural county may have one person in IT, who also runs phones and printers. Departments such as the assessor, sheriff, and clerk may each manage their own pages. Broadband is limited in parts of the county, which makes heavy pages a barrier too. Good accessibility work and light, fast pages go together: clear text, small images, and no unnecessary scripts help people on a slow connection and people using assistive technology.
A plan that fits a small team
- Pick the five or six pages and tools residents use most, and fix those first.
- Make one standard for agendas, packets, and forms and use it everywhere.
- Ask each third party vendor in writing about WCAG 2.1 AA, and keep their answers.
- Add a visible way to report an access problem and promise a reply.
- Set a yearly review. Maintenance keeps it from sliding.
See also municipal website development and our guidance for small towns within your county.
General information, not legal advice. Automated testing cannot establish full ADA compliance or guarantee protection from lawsuits. It finds some kinds of barriers quickly. A person still has to test the rest. Ask a qualified attorney how the law applies to you.
Frequently asked questions
Is a county with 12,000 people covered?
Yes. Size changes the date, not whether the rule applies. A county under 50,000 has until April 26, 2028.
Do county elections pages count?
Web content made available by the county is covered. Election information published by the county should be accessible. Ask counsel about how specific election systems are treated.
What about sheriff or court pages run by other agencies?
It depends on who the public entity is and who publishes the content. Check with your attorney how responsibility is divided.
Can we post PDFs scanned from paper?
Scanned image only PDFs generally cannot be read by a screen reader. Create new documents in accessible form and prioritize converting those residents still use.