Learn more about your rights as a NYC voter and where to find help if you need it.
Every New York voter has the right to cast a ballot privately and independently. If you need help filling out your ballot due to disability or limited English proficiency, support is available.
Ballot Marking Device
Ballot Marking Devices are available at all poll sites to help voters fill out their ballots during early voting and on Election Day. These devices can be helpful to voters who are blind, visually impaired, or have a disability or condition that make it difficult or impossible to mark a ballot with a pen. However, any voter can request to use a Ballot Marking Device.
You can use a Ballot Marking Device to see your ballot on a display screen, listen to your choices through headphones, or translate your ballot into additional languages. If you’d like to use a Ballot Marking Device, just ask a poll worker!
The device provides four ways to mark your ballot:
- Touch screen
- Sip & puff device
- Keypad (Braille)
- Rocker paddle
Learn more about Ballot Marking Devices from the Board of Elections
The NYC Board of Elections explains how to use the features on Ballot Marking Devices
Accessible Absentee Ballot
If you are visually impaired or cannot mark a paper ballot, you can still vote by mail. Accessible absentee ballots can be read by a screen reader and filled out using a computer. You may request an accessible ballot from the NYC Board of Elections.
Voters who request an accessible absentee ballot can use their personal adaptive technology to mark and print their absentee ballot from home. To vote with an accessible absentee ballot, you must print out your ballot before returning it to the Board of Elections.
Language Access
By law, New York City ballots and other voting materials are translated into Bengali, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish at certain poll sites based on local Census Data.
In addition, interpreters are available at some poll sites to provide assistance in these languages and others, such as Arabic, Haitian Creole, Russian, and Yiddish. You can learn which poll sites offer translators in each language at the Civic Engagement Commission’s website.
If you need language assistance at a poll site, you also have the right to bring your own interpreter with you.
