Morton Digital

2026-05-17 · 8 min read

Georgia Government Website Accessibility: What the DOJ Title II Rule Means for Your Agency

Abstract dark editorial illustration: a Georgia state government compliance network rendered in fine copper line work on dark slate, with WCAG accessibility markers at county nodes. No text.

# Georgia Government Website Accessibility: What the DOJ Title II Rule Means for Your Agency

Georgia has 159 counties — more than any other state east of the Mississippi — plus hundreds of incorporated municipalities, school districts, transit authorities, and state agencies. Every one of them is a public entity covered by Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The DOJ's 2024 Final Rule made that obligation concrete: WCAG 2.1 Level AA conformance, with a hard federal deadline of April 26, 2027 for entities serving populations of 50,000 or more, and April 26, 2028 for smaller ones.

There is no Georgia exemption and no local ordinance that overrides the federal rule. The same standard that applies to Miami-Dade County applies to Fulton County. The same deadline that applies to the City of Jacksonville applies to the City of Atlanta.

This post covers who is covered, what must be remediated, where Georgia government sites most commonly fail, the enforcement picture specific to Georgia, and what a compliance program looks like with eleven months until the April 2027 deadline.

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Who Is Covered

April 26, 2027 deadline (population ≥ 50,000):

State government entities — including the Georgia Governor's Office, all executive agencies, the General Assembly web presence, and the Georgia court system — are covered under this tier regardless of population count.

Major counties above the 50,000 threshold include:

Major municipalities covered at this tier include the City of Atlanta (~500K), the City of Savannah (~150K), and MARTA — the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, an independent transit authority serving Fulton and DeKalb counties.

April 26, 2028 deadline (population < 50,000):

Counties, cities, and special-purpose entities below the 50,000 threshold get one additional year but face the same WCAG 2.1 Level AA standard. Georgia has dozens of counties in this tier — smaller but not exempt.

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What Is Covered

The rule covers any digital content used to deliver public services or communicate government information. For Georgia agencies, that includes:

The rule does not require remediation of archived content clearly labeled as such, content posted by third parties not under contract, and preexisting documents that are not used to apply for or access government services. Those exceptions are narrower than most agencies assume — routine meeting agendas used to inform public participation do not qualify as archived content simply because they are old.

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Where Georgia Government Sites Most Commonly Fail

County commission and city council PDFs. Georgia counties publish large volumes of meeting minutes, agendas, budget documents, and ordinances. Many are scanned images of paper documents — machine-unreadable, entirely inaccessible to screen reader users. This is the highest-volume finding in Georgia county audits and the one that requires the most remediation effort.

MARTA trip planning and real-time arrival. Transit accessibility is a high-enforcement priority nationally. MARTA's web and mobile trip-planning tools, real-time arrival displays, and service alert systems must meet WCAG 2.1 AA. Interactive maps and dynamic content that lack proper ARIA labeling are common failure points.

Permit portals in fast-growing suburban counties. Gwinnett, Cherokee, Forsyth, and Henry counties have experienced significant growth and have active online permit systems. These portals often include multi-step forms with inadequate error identification, missing field labels, and session timeout warnings that are not keyboard-accessible.

Court and judicial electronic filing systems. Georgia's eCourt and county-level e-filing portals are used by self-represented litigants who may rely on assistive technology. Form labels, document upload interfaces, and confirmation workflows are frequent failure categories.

Savannah tourism and historic district content. The City of Savannah maintains web content serving both residents and visitors with disabilities. Tourism-adjacent government content — maps, event listings, historic district information — frequently relies on image-heavy layouts without adequate alternative text.

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The Georgia Enforcement Picture

Georgia is home to one of the more active disability advocacy communities in the Southeast. Atlanta hosts multiple organizations that monitor government compliance and assist individuals in filing ADA complaints with the Department of Justice. The DOJ complaint mechanism is low-barrier: a resident with a disability submits a complaint online, DOJ investigates, and agencies without a documented compliance program typically receive a corrective action agreement.

Neighboring Florida has already seen DOJ inquiries related to government website accessibility. Georgia agencies that delay past the April 2027 deadline will be filing complaints-in-waiting, not in a grace period. DOJ does not issue warnings before accepting complaints.

A proactive compliance program — completed audit, documented remediation plan, published accessibility statement — is the demonstrated defense. Agencies that can show they identified gaps and are actively remediating them are in a materially different position than those that cannot.

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Compliance Timeline for Georgia Agencies

With the April 26, 2027 deadline eleven months out, here is a realistic backwards schedule for agencies starting now:

| Milestone | Target | |---|---| | Scope definition and procurement | May – June 2026 | | WCAG audit (manual + automated) | July – August 2026 | | Findings review and prioritization | September 2026 | | Remediation sprints | September 2026 – January 2027 | | Re-audit of remediated content | February 2027 | | Accessibility statement published | March 2027 | | April 26, 2027 deadline | April 26, 2027 |

Agencies that begin procurement in May or June 2026 have enough time to complete a full audit-remediate-re-audit cycle before the deadline. Agencies that wait until the fall will find remediation time compressed against the same fixed date.

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Guidance for Georgia's Major Government Entities

The compliance framework is the same for every covered entity: scope the digital inventory, conduct a manual and automated audit against WCAG 2.1 Level AA, prioritize findings by severity and service impact, remediate, re-audit, and publish an accessibility statement. What varies is the size of the digital footprint and the complexity of the service portfolio.

Detailed compliance guidance is available for Georgia's major government entities:

Smaller counties in the April 2028 tier have an additional year but the same standard and will benefit from starting the scoping process now rather than in 2027.

For context on what this compliance process looks like in a neighboring state, Morton Technology Consulting's Florida hub post covers the same framework applied to Florida counties: Florida Government Website Accessibility.

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The Parallax WCAG Audit

Morton Technology Consulting offers the Parallax WCAG audit at a fixed fee of $9,500.

The audit covers 200 representative pages across the agency's digital footprint. Testing combines automated scanning with axe-core against the full WCAG 2.1 Level AA ruleset and manual testing with NVDA on Windows and VoiceOver on macOS — the two most common screen readers used by government website visitors with disabilities. Keyboard-only navigation testing is conducted separately from screen reader testing to surface failures that automation cannot detect.

Deliverables include a full findings report with severity ratings (critical, serious, moderate, minor), a remediation roadmap prioritized by impact on service access, and a DOJ-compliant accessibility statement draft ready for legal review and publication.

At $9,500, the Parallax audit fits within most Georgia government agency written-quote thresholds without a full competitive bid process.

Morton Technology Consulting serves government clients across the Southeast, including Florida and Georgia entities operating under the April 2027 deadline. A sample audit report is available at morton-digital.com/parallax-sample-audit. Full service details are at morton-digital.com/products/parallax.

To start a conversation about your agency's timeline and scope, contact [email protected].

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*Morton Technology Consulting LLC, Tallahassee, FL. Southeast government website WCAG 2.1 compliance audits for the April 2027 deadline. [email protected]*

Sources

  1. [1] ADA.gov — DOJ Fact Sheet: New Rule on Accessibility of Web Content and Mobile Apps — "State and local governments must make sure that their web content and mobile apps meet WCAG 2.1, Level AA"
  2. [2] ADA.gov — DOJ Title II Web Accessibility Final Rule Compliance Dates — "Governments serving 50,000 or more people: April 26, 2027"
  3. [3] U.S. Census Bureau — QuickFacts: Georgia — "Georgia has 159 counties"
  4. [4] U.S. Census Bureau — QuickFacts: Fulton County, Georgia — "Fulton County, Georgia population estimate"
  5. [5] ADA.gov — DOJ Title II Web Accessibility Final Rule Overview — "A public entity that uses a third party's web content or mobile app to offer services to the public must ensure that such content or app is accessible"
  6. [6] Deque Systems — Automated Testing Study Identifies 57% of Digital Accessibility Issues — "automated testing can identify approximately 57% of accessibility issues"

Morton Technology Consulting LLC — WCAG 2.1 AA audits for Florida government agencies. Parallax audit → · WCAG Readiness Kit → · All posts →