Disabled demand better access to voting booths

Rights activists yesterday called on the Central Election Commission to give the physically handicapped better access to polling booths. PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES

Members of a group representing the welfare of the physically disadvantaged yesterday demanded that officials from the government's Central Election Committee (CEC, 中央選舉委員會) take immediate action to allow them better access to voting booths.

"Please let us vote," said members of the League of Welfare Organizations for the Disabled (殘障聯盟) yesterday. Members of the group said that the current voting environment is still not convenient for the disabled.

"Whenever there is an election, we come here to demand improvements, but still little has changed," said Hsieh Tung-ju (謝東儒), deputy secretary-general of the league.

For people in wheelchairs, he said, many voting places lack access ramps and voting booths are often too high and too narrow.

The official election pamphlets, as well -- documents on each of the candidates, published by the CEC -- lack audio versions for visually impaired people. Sign language translators for the hard of hearing are also unavailable.

The CEC has set up guidelines outlining where the physically disadvantaged can cast their ballots. In the working manual, specially designed booths are to be installed in all voting halls.

In addition, workers at voting stations are required to take classes on how to assist the disabled.

However, representatives of the physically disadvantaged said such measures are often not put into practice nationwide.

Lin Shih-wang (林石旺), the chairman of the Chinese Visually Impaired Association, said a special voting tool for the blind -- a transparent card in Braille -- was unavailable in many voting halls.

"It's always difficult for me to obtain sufficient information about the candidates because some of the TV debates don't have sign language translations. This sometimes prevented me from voting," Ku Yu-shan (顧玉山), a director of the Hearing Impaired Association, told the Taipei Times (with sign language translation).

Ku said the process of counting and announcing ballots should also use sign language translators.

Assistance for the disabled sometimes seemed too patronizing, said the representatives.

"In many elections, the worker took me to the booth and watched how I voted. Sometimes they even `helped' me to circle the ballot," said Lin Shih-wang.

Responding to the demands of the disabled, Huang Shih-cheng (黃石城), CEC chairman, said he understood the problems and hoped to improve the situation, admitting that more needs to be done. He said that the 14,000 voting centers nationwide would get wheelchair-friendly voting booths and that a Braille voting instrument would be prepared. In addition, voting hall workers would get proper training, he said.