The Irish Wheelchair Association has called for “appropriate measures to be taken” to ensure that all people with disabilities can fully participate in upcoming elections and referendums.
In the last general election in 2020, 29 buildings, servicing 43 polling stations, were not accessible to wheelchair users, according to a report by the National Disability Authority on access to voting in Ireland.
The survey found that the obstacles people with disabilities encountered included “a lack of easy-to-read candidates’ information leading up to the election, inaccessible polling booths, not being able to get into the polling station and difficulties with the tactile voting template for the visually impaired”.
The Department of Housing is responsible for polling stations and said in a statement that returning officers are legally obliged to give public notice of all polling stations which are inaccessible to wheelchair users, “to give electors adequate time to apply to have their vote transferred to an alternative accessible polling place”.
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National Advocacy Manager with IWA Joan Carthy the current situation is not “acceptable” and added every polling station needs to be accessible.
Speaking to RTÉ’s News at One, Ms Carthy said: “The onus should not be on the person with the disability to try and find where else that they have to go to, maybe is separate from their own family.”
In its statement, the department said: “If an elector anticipates difficulty in gaining access to his or her polling station, he or she may apply in writing to the Returning Officer for authorisation to vote at another polling station in the same constituency.
“Furthermore, a person with a disability or illness which prevents him or her from going to the polling station can vote by post if he or she applies to be included in the postal voters list as part of the register of electors.”
