AODA Alliance
ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT ALLIANCE
NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Ontario’s Human Rights Tribunal Now to Get Zoom Link to Observe October 5-9 and 29 Virtual Hearing Where Blind Voter David Lepofsky Argues that Elections Ontario Hasn’t Ensured Accessible Voting for Blind Voters
September 9, 2026 Toronto: An important virtual hearing at Ontario’s Human Rights Tribunal takes place from October 5 to 9, and on October 29, 2026. Blind lawyer, disability rights law professor, podcaster and disability advocate David Lepofsky will present a disability discrimination complaint against Elections Ontario for failing to ensure that as a blind voter, he can consistently and reliably mark, verify and cast his ballot independently and in private during Ontario elections. Tribunal hearings are open to the public. However the Tribunal does not livestream its hearings on YouTube or its own web page.
To observe any part of the Tribunal hearing virtually, any member of the public, including reporters, must email the Tribunal Registrar as soon as possible to ask for the link to attend the Zoom meeting. Write the Tribunal Registrar at HRTO.Registrar@ontario.ca and ask to attend as an observer the hearing in David Lepofsky v. Elections Ontario Re: HRTO File No. 2019-37111-I. To get a response, submit a request as far as possible in advance of the hearing dates. Add these hearing dates to your calendar.
Lepofsky filed this human rights complaint over seven years ago. The Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians (AEBC) and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) have intervened in this hearing to support Lepofsky. Lepofsky is taking active part in presenting his case, and is represented pro bono by Naymark LLP.
After years of unsuccessful disability advocacy for truly accessible voting for voters with disabilities, David Lepofsky v. Elections Ontario was triggered by an incident in the 2018 Ontario election. Lepofsky tried to vote using Elections Ontario’s assistive voting terminal for voters with disabilities, only to have his marked ballot end up falling to the floor. A poll worker saw who he voted for. This severely breached ballot secrecy. Days after this happened, Elections Ontario did not dispute those facts and apologized to Lepofsky.
Lepofsky will argue that Elections Ontario did not take sufficient corrective action to ensure accessible voting, including before, during and after that appalling incident. Lepofsky will argue that far from fixing its flawed system, Elections Ontario’s failures led him to again experience barriers to accessible voting since that June 2018 incident. He argues that this is a continuing human rights violation, hurting him and other similarly situated voters with vision loss.
“The secret ballot is essential to democracy,” said David Lepofsky, who chairs the non-partisan AODA Alliance that has campaigned for years for barrier-free voting for voters with disabilities. He is also a visiting professor of disability rights at the law schools at Queen’s, Western and the University of Ottawa as well as the host of “Disability Rights and Wrongs — The David Lepodcast.”
“Elections Ontario has had ample basis to know for years that its measures for ensuring accessible voting for me and other similarly situated voters are not reliable, and that we’ve pressed for it to expand its offerings to us with disabilities. They say they’re committed to accessible voting for us, but their actions fall far short of their words.”
From October 5 to 9, Lepofsky and Elections Ontario will cross-examine each others’ witnesses. The Tribunal received written witness statements and extensive documentary evidence from Lepofsky’s five witnesses (including from Lepofsky himself) and from Elections Ontario’s six witnesses. On October 29, 2026, the hearing will resume for the parties to make oral argument. The Tribunal then has the option to reserve judgement, and to later release its decision.
At this hearing, the parties will argue whether Elections Ontario has violated Lepofsky’s right under the Ontario Human Rights Code to equal treatment with respect to services and facilities without discrimination because of Lepofsky’s disability, total blindness. Lepofsky will argue that Elections Ontario has failed to fulfil its duty to accommodate his disability. Elections Ontario has the burden to prove that it was impossible to do more to accommodate blind voters like Lepofsky without suffering undue hardship. Elections Ontario is vigourously defending this claim. It denies that there has been any human rights violation.
At this hearing, the Tribunal will only consider whether Elections Ontario has violated Lepofsky’s human rights. If it rules in favour of Lepofsky, a later hearing will be held for the Tribunal to decide what remedy to order. If the Tribunal rules against Elections Ontario, Lepofsky will ask the Tribunal to order Elections Ontario to develop an action plan that the Tribunal approves to ensure accessible voting for voters with vision loss like Lepofsky, and to appoint an Official Monitor to oversee the process.
Two decades ago, Lepofsky had to fight two successive cases at the Human Rights Tribunal to force the TTC to consistently and reliably announce all subway, bus and streetcar stops to accommodate blind riders like him. TTC, like Elections Ontario, fought him every step of the way, using public money.
Contact: AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky, aodafeedback@gmail.com
Twitter: @davidlepofsky or @aodaalliance
For background, check out:
The June 1, 2018 AODA Alliance Update which describes the violation of AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofskys right to independently mark his ballot in secret and verify his choice in the 2018 Ontario election.
The AODA Alliance website’s elections accessibility page which spells out the coalitions efforts for many years to ensure accessible voting in Ontario for voters with disabilities.