Online voting for disabled voters

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.