We Tested 95 California Government Homepages for WCAG Failures
We ran axe-core against 95 California county and city homepages. 63 of them (66.3%) had at least one automatically detected failure of WCAG 2.1 Level A or AA, the standard the ADA Title II web rule requires. Cities fared worse than counties: 76.4% against 52.5%.
By George Shvaya · · 8 min read · Original research
Why we ran it
The Justice Department’s 2024 rule under Title II of the ADA makes WCAG 2.1 Level AA the technical standard for the web content and mobile apps of state and local governments. An interim final rule published April 20, 2026 moved the compliance dates: April 26, 2027 for governments serving 50,000 or more people, and April 26, 2028 for smaller governments and special district governments. Our guide to the Title II web rule covers the requirements and exceptions in detail; the DOJ fact sheet and the Federal Register notice are the primary sources.
We wanted a concrete picture of where California governments stand on the part that can be measured from outside: what an automated test finds on the homepage, the single page every resident is most likely to land on.
Headline results
66.3%
of 95 homepages had a WCAG 2.1 A/AA failure
3
failing elements on the median homepage
24
homepages with a critical-impact failure
| Group | Homepages | WCAG 2.1 A/AA failure | Incl. WCAG 2.2 AA | Median failing elements |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Counties | 40 | 21 (52.5%) | 23 (57.5%) | 1 |
| Cities (50,000+ residents) | 55 | 42 (76.4%) | 44 (80%) | 4 |
| All homepages | 95 | 63 (66.3%) | 67 (70.5%) | 3 |
The ten most common failures
Each row is an axe-core rule, the WCAG success criterion it maps to, and how many of the 95 homepages failed it at least once. “Failing elements” is the total across all homepages.
| Rule | What it means | WCAG | Homepages | Failing elements | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| link-name | Links with no accessible name: an icon or image link a screen reader announces only as "link". | 2.4.4, 4.1.2 | 31 (32.6%) | 128 | Serious |
| color-contrast | Text below 4.5:1 contrast with its background (3:1 for large text). | 1.4.3 | 24 (25.3%) | 141 | Serious |
| target-size | Touch or click targets smaller than 24×24 CSS pixels without enough spacing around them. | 2.5.8 (2.2 only) | 21 (22.1%) | 78 | Serious |
| aria-required-parent | An element with an ARIA role (such as a menu item or tab) that is not inside the parent role it requires. | 1.3.1 | 12 (12.6%) | 50 | Critical |
| frame-title | An embedded frame (map, video, calendar widget) with no title describing what it contains. | 4.1.2 | 9 (9.5%) | 10 | Serious |
| image-alt | An image with no text alternative, so its content is lost to screen reader users. | 1.1.1 | 7 (7.4%) | 22 | Critical |
| list | A list element containing something other than list items, which breaks how the list is announced. | 1.3.1 | 7 (7.4%) | 8 | Serious |
| aria-hidden-focus | Content hidden from assistive technology that still receives keyboard focus, so focus lands somewhere silent. | 4.1.2 | 7 (7.4%) | 60 | Serious |
| aria-required-children | An element with an ARIA role (such as a list box or menu) missing the child roles it requires. | 1.3.1 | 6 (6.3%) | 7 | Critical |
| select-name | A drop-down menu with no label, so a screen reader cannot say what it is for. | 4.1.2 | 6 (6.3%) | 13 | Critical |
A note on target size. Success criterion 2.5.8 Target Size (Minimum) was added in WCAG 2.2. The Title II rule requires WCAG 2.1 AA, so it is not part of the legal standard. That is why we report two numbers: 63 homepages (66.3%) failed WCAG 2.1 A/AA, and 67 (70.5%) failed when the 2.2 rule is included. Four homepages failed only the target-size rule.
What the top three failures mean for residents
Links with no name. A screen reader user tabbing through the homepage hears “link, link, link” for icon links that carry no text alternative. On a government site those icons often lead to payments, permits or social channels, and the user has to open each one to find out where it goes. It was the most common failure, on 31 homepages.
Low contrast. Light gray text on white, or white text on a pale photo, is hard to read for anyone with low vision and for everyone on a phone in daylight. WCAG asks for 4.5:1 for normal text. It failed on 24 homepages, with 141 failing elements in total.
Small targets. Tiny icon buttons and tightly packed links are hard to hit for anyone with a tremor or limited dexterity, and on a phone for everyone. It failed on 21 homepages; it is a WCAG 2.2 criterion, so it is good practice rather than a Title II requirement today.
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What an automated scan cannot tell you
Automated tools detect only a portion of WCAG failures. They cannot judge whether alt text is accurate, whether contrast holds over an image, whether a keyboard user can operate every menu, or how a screen reader experiences the page. A homepage with zero automated failures can still have serious barriers, and a homepage with a few can be largely usable.
For comparison, WebAIM’s 2026 Million report found detected WCAG 2 failures on 95.9% of the top one million home pages. The two numbers come from different tools, different rule sets and very different samples, so they are not directly comparable. What they share is the direction: most home pages still fail checks a machine can find.
What to do with this
- Run the free accessibility checker on your homepage and your highest-traffic service pages.
- Work through the WCAG 2.2 checklist, starting with the Level A criteria behind the failures above: 1.1.1, 1.3.1, 2.4.4 and 4.1.2.
- Fix icon links and form controls first. They are the most common failures and usually the cheapest to fix in a site template.
- Plan manual testing with a keyboard and a screen reader before the compliance date, or bring in help through our accessibility audit and remediation service.
Methodology and limits
- Sample. California counties and cities listed in Wikidata with an official website. Every city in the sample has 50,000 or more residents; the smallest has 52,176.
- Exclusions. 109 sites were fetched and 14 excluded: sites that were unreachable or failed DNS or certificate checks, sites where the test script could not be injected, and one listed site that was a tourism site rather than the government’s own. That leaves 95 homepages: 40 county and 55 city.
- Tool. axe-core 4.10.3 in headless Chrome at 1366×900, one page load per homepage, rules tagged wcag2a, wcag2aa, wcag21a, wcag21aa and wcag22aa. Tests ran on October 17, 2026, Pacific time.
- What counts as a failure. A homepage counts as failing if axe-core reported at least one violation. Impact levels are axe-core’s own ratings.
- Limits. Homepages only, one load each, no retries, no manual testing. Automated results do not establish legal compliance or non-compliance.
- Names. We report aggregates only and do not name individual governments.
This page is general information, not legal advice.
Frequently asked questions
What share of California government homepages failed?
In our sample of 95 county and city homepages tested on October 17, 2026, 63 (66.3%) had at least one automatically detected WCAG 2.1 Level A or AA failure, the standard the ADA Title II web rule requires. Including the WCAG 2.2 target-size rule, 67 (70.5%) had at least one failure.
Does a failure here mean a government is violating the ADA?
No. An automated scan detects some WCAG failures on one page at one moment. It does not establish legal compliance or non-compliance, and the Title II compliance dates are April 26, 2027 for entities with 50,000 or more residents and April 26, 2028 for smaller entities and special district governments. This page is general information, not legal advice.
What was the most common failure?
Links with no accessible name, found on 31 of 95 homepages (32.6%). These are usually icon or image links, such as social media icons or a logo link, that a screen reader announces only as "link".
Why are cities worse than counties in this sample?
We did not investigate causes. The data show 76.4% of city homepages and 52.5% of county homepages had at least one WCAG 2.1 A/AA failure, and the median city homepage had 4 failing elements against 1 for counties. Differences in templates, vendors and page complexity are possible explanations we did not test.
Can I run the same test on my own site?
Our free accessibility checker runs static HTML checks on any public page, and the free audit runs the full axe-core test plus the manual checks automated tools cannot do.
About the work
Webvello is a web development and AI search company founded in 2024 in Roseville, California, with 50+ projects across 37+ cities. Founder George Shvaya came to the web from cybersecurity and systems engineering. We test our own site with the same axe-core version used here.
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