The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Poll booths will be disabled-friendly

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 17, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Poll booths will be disabled-friendly

By Akhila Seetharaman

CHENNAI, APRIL 16. Wheelchair-users in the city will not face difficulty in accessing polling booths on poll day, if everything goes as planned. For the first time, the Election Commission (EC) has instructed District Election Officers to ensure that wooden ramps are installed wherever necessary.

In India, around 7.5 million disabled persons are eligible to vote but access to the booths has been a problem. One of the rules of the model code of conduct says that visually impaired persons and those with infirmities can take a companion of his/her choice to the polling booth.

The rule also prescribes a separate queue for the disabled. In the past, there has not been enough awareness about the rights of the disabled among presiding officers. Measures on the ground have not always matched rules on paper.

"In the last election, many of us had to stand in queues," says M. Sahadevan, professor, Presidency College, who is visually impaired. Many officers disallowed visually impaired voters to be assisted by their companions and insisted upon assisting the blind voters themselves. "There was no way of knowing if they were entering our choice of candidate."

As part of the three-day election training, presiding officers of polling booths have been instructed to be courteous to the disabled. They will also be asked to permit blind voters to be assisted by their companions, the Chief Electoral Officer, Mrutyunjay Sarangi, said.

Activists point out that visually impaired voters should not sacrifice the privilege of keeping their ballot secret, when Braille stickers and voice synthesising software can make a difference.

"It's ironic that the visually impaired can operate telephones but not electronic voting machines," says C. Ramachandran, trustee of Nethrajothi, a non-governmental organisation working for the welfare of the visually impaired.

"By displaying each party symbol in relief, electronic voting can be made more inclusive," he said. But exclusion does not only take place at the point of casting the ballot, says Aishwarya Raj, trustee, Dorcas, an NGO working with the HIV/AIDS-affected, and the disabled.

"They are left out of the process. The disabled may not have access to the information needed to decide on whom to vote for and why. For example, if there is a public meeting, they are often left out."

When there is so much of voter apathy among able-bodied, reluctance to vote among the disabled is only natural. As far as we are concerned, nobody is taking up our issues, no manifesto is talking about our problems, said Mr. Sahadevan.

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