Two-thirds of disabled voters faced access difficulties at polling stations on election day. The charity Scope is calling for online voting to address the problem.
Since the 1992 General Election, disability charity Scope has run a campaign called Polls Apart, which aims to make elections more accessible to disabled voters. After voting at each General Election, disabled people are asked to complete a survey about the accessibility of their voting experience.
The Polls Apart campaign 2010 surveyed over 1,000 disabled people in constituencies throughout the UK. Researchers found that 67 per cent of polling stations had one or more significant access barriers to disabled voters. This represents just a 1 per cent improvement from the last General Election (68 per cent) and 2 per cent from the General Election of 2001 (69 per cent).
This meant that in 2010, many disabled people needed assistance to vote, and could not vote in the privacy of polling booths like other voters. Some disabled people were unable to vote at all.
Despite the widespread assumption that postal voting was the most accessible channel for disabled voters, almost half (47 per cent) of postal voters reported one or more significant problems. These ranged from the confusing and complicated instructions that accompanied the ballot to the difficulty postal voters faced in marking and folding and the paper into the small envelope provided.
One long-term solution being suggested by Scope is the introduction of online voting for disabled voters. Thirty five per cent of the disabled people surveyed in 2010 said they would like to be able to vote online.
Scope’s Ruth Scott told the BBC she supports online voting:
“In a digital age where people can vote by text for the X-Factor and shop and bank online, our voting system really needs to catch up.”
Online voting would certainly allow more disabled people to cast their votes independently and in safety, comfort and privacy.
This would also benefit non-disabled voters, and politics as a whole, as it would shorten the entire voting process. This may encourage more people to vote, particularly young, first time voters.
It is now to be hoped that the Scope report will be read by all politicians, and that serious thought will be given to allowing the option of online voting for everyone.
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13 Responses to “Online voting for disabled voters”
LockPickerNet
Online voting for disabled voters http://bit.ly/bt1fnb via @leftfootfwd
Online voting for disabled voters « The best Labour blogs
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SadButMadLad
There is a difference between voting on X-Factor where there is not much fraud and the result doesn’t affect millions of people and voting in an election where fraud is extremely important to avoid. In the former there is no need for any validation and it’s more important for ITV to make money from the phone in. In the later it is extremely important to verify every vote and it’s more important to ensure that the government is elected with a proper mandate.
Security is pretty good even now with on-line banking, but it can still be bypassed. However security is more than just making sure the bits aren’t intercepted as they travel from the elector to the government. It’s also making sure that the vote belongs to the person making it and no one else. It’s also making sure that the vote is recorded properly and that it hasn’t been adjusted afterwards. That’s why postal votes aren’t a very good method. It’s also why electronic voting machines are suspect unless they can keep a full and proper paper record and prove that all votes are correct and haven’t been adjusted afterwards and that the software has not been tampered with.
To make voting accessible to the disabled it doesn’t need high tech. Just good old fashioned low tech and a slight change in the law. If someone can’t get in to the voting booths, the staff should be allowed to bring the box out. If someone needs help writing out their ballot form then this is already possible via proxies. Sometimes the disabled do need someone to do something for them.
Edward Leathem
RT @leftfootfwd: Online voting for disabled voters http://bit.ly/bt1fnb
mike
they can vote while the tories and lib dems cut their benefits