CHENNAI: With accessible elections still a long way to go, Disability Rights Alliance has released a report to help the Election Commission of India (ECI) implement the best practices in the state.
While the report commended initiatives such as making candidate lists in EVM order (Form 7A) accessible and the efforts of Chennai district officials in addressing issues at polling booths, it also advocated for improving the infrastructure to make polling booths more accessible.
According to the report, several measures in the ECI’s note released ahead of the elections to ensure inclusion in the voting process and enhance electoral participation were not implemented by the state officials. This included the delayed convening of State Steering Committee on Accessible Election (SSCAE) meetings, registration of voters through other government databases, braille voter information slips, polling station rationalisation, ramps and priority queues with signage among others. Activists said while the instructions given by the election commission are good, there is no accountability fixed on the officials at the state level to implement them.
“Chennai has pioneered several initiatives to make elections inclusive like having a polling booth at Institute of Mental Health. The district officials also started the work to make polling stations accessible before other districts and were able to get more work done. District control rooms had sign language interpreters which were good examples. These facilities should be implemented across the state by the chief electoral officer and also across India by the ECI,” said Smitha Sadasivam of the Disability Rights Alliance.
However, long-term measures like ensuring polling booths have proper ramps and toilets for disabled persons have been lacking since 2009. The report also highlighted the gap in registration and enrolment of Persons with Disability (PwD) voters as only 50% of them are registered. There are also issues in streamlining this data registered by the disabled persons in the Saksham application as it doesn’t get reflected. The report said the transport service announced by the Tamil Nadu CEO at the last moment was not usable for voters with disabilities as many had tried the 1950 helpline or Saksham app which did not facilitate their transport requests.