Election Commission takes a giant step forward - The Economic Times https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/election-commission-takes-a-giant-step-forward/printarticle/65075518.cms 1/5 Business New s › New s › Politics and Nation MAR BY , ET BUREAU | UPDATED: JUL 21, 2018, 10.40 AM IST Post a Comment Sadasivan serves as the eyes and ears of the ECI – she was among those who surveyed polling stations and told the commission what the trek to cast one’s vote entailed for a disabled person. Big Change: The end of Five-Year Plans: All you need to know Election Commission takes a giant step forward The next Lok Sabha polls will be a more inclusive one, with the Election Commission of India aggressively wooing a constituency that hardly any political party has addressed – persons with disabilities – across each state, district and polling booth. The Election Commission of India is on a mission to ensure wider participation by people with disabilities after having found that many of them couldn’t – or didn’t – exercise their fundamental right to vote. When the ECI asked a civil society organisation to conduct an ‘access audit’ of polling stations in RK Nagar in Tamil Nadu to assess if they were disabled friendly, it had no idea what was coming. The findings showed that most wheelchair ramps were ill-placed, too steep or punctuated with bumps and uneven surfaces that made movement tortuous. Toilets at polling stations could hardly be reached – even with ramps. The survey threw up other glaring deficiencies. Short-statured people pointed out that voting machines at most polling stations were placed on tables that were too high for them to reach. Those with locomotor disabilities were unable to press the buttons on the machine. Often, the polling staff were unaware, unconcerned or insensitive to these problems, which could be fixed by simply changing the position and incline of the voting machine and stretching out its 5-metre long cable. The cable is typically taped up at polling stations, which clearly are not geared to address the needs of the differently abled. While there are Braille ballot reference sheets at polling stations on political parties, candidates and party symbols, they are not available in regional languages and this leaves the visually disabled very disoriented at voting time. ANUBHUTI VISHNOI 03:59 PM | 07 AUG MARKET STATS CLOSED Search for New s, Stock Quotes & NAV's 8/7/2018 Election Commission takes a giant step forward - The Economic Times https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/election-commission-takes-a-giant-step-forward/printarticle/65075518.cms 2/5 Still other persons with disabilities did not even want to be enrolled as voters because they thought the process of polling would be long and difficult to navigate. Add to that the general sense of nervousness and pressure that they feel when the polling staff hurries them up and it is an experience that many of them would rather avoid. Then there are persons with disabilities who haven’t even been touched by the electoral process, especially those with mental disabilities but not of unsound mind. These are over and above the more mundane difficulties in the voter registration process and inaccessible registration material. FINDING ACCESS With these disconcerting factors in mind, the ECI is developing a full-fledged ‘Strategic Framework on Accessible Elections’ going into the next Lok Sabha polls. Suresh Menons neardeath experience! HDFC Life Lake Prints Embroidered Fashion Silk Saree(Pink)- Rs. 914 FLIPKART Recommended By Colombia There are 26.8 million persons with disabilities in the country – or 2.21% of the population – as per Census 2011, according to the website of the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities. These include people with seeing, hearing, speech and movement disabilities, mental retardation, mental illness and multiple disabilities. Over 800 million people were eligible to vote in the 2014 general election. The ECI’s target, even at a basic level, is daunting. For starters, there is no national-level database of voters with disabilities. Even if the ECI wants to reach out to voters with disabilities and offer customised assistance, it just doesn’t know where they may be. In several states that are headed for assembly polls this year, the exercise of mapping persons with disabilities has started and the authorities are discovering that many of them are not even enrolled as voters. In Rajasthan, where elections are due later this year, only 50% of the 1 million persons with disabilities are enrolled as voters. Many of them are not even aware of how to get registered as voters. These and other issues were flagged to the ECI by the chief electoral officers of various states. At a national consultation hosted by the ECI earlier this month, the immediate challenges for the next Lok Sabha election were brought home. 8/7/2018 Election Commission takes a giant step forward - The Economic Times https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/election-commission-takes-a-giant-step-forward/printarticle/65075518.cms 3/5 The electoral officers pointed out how public buildings were far from equipped to allow movement of disabled people. While most polling stations are located in school buildings, these premises are woefully short of barrier-free infrastructure. The gap is even more acute in urbanareas. Still others pointed out that one of the biggest stumbling blocks was to ensure transportation so that voters with disabilities could vote and return home – if this was addressed, it would make a big difference. In Karnataka, which went to the polls earlier this year, 56% of the disabled people did not know about the usage of voting machines, according to Sanjeev Kumar, the state’s chief electoral officer. While many people argue that there isn’t enough legal backing for people with disabilities in the electoral process, Smitha Sadasivan, a disability activist and consultant to the ECI on making elections accessible, said the answer lies outside of the rulebooks. Special efforts and motivation are the key, said Sadasivan, citing the example of a former chief electoral officer in Tamil Nadu who demonstrated how it could be done during the 2016 state assembly elections. he officer noticed how many people with mental disabilities could not vote even though they were eligible because they could not be reached by the ECI machinery. The reason: they were admitted in mental health institutions and kept out of the purview of the electoral exercise. According to Sadasivan, many of these people were actually of very sound mind and eligible to vote. The electoral officer reached out to the mental health institutions and figured how many of them had been declared of unsound mind by court as per the rulebook. Save these few, he insisted that the rest must cast their vote and that’s what happened. It was a first in Tamil Nadu and probably in the country, she said. “So, making elections accessible is not just about laws and the rule book but about reaching out, taking initiative. The EC is doing a lot of that now and that is a good sign,” Sadasivan said. THE SILVER LINING While there is a long road ahead to ensure complete and barrier-free access to all in the electoral process, encouraging beginnings are being made, just as in Tamil Nadu. Uttarakhand, with its hilly terrain, tried the ‘Divyang Doli’ in the 2017 elections to help voters who could not walk to the polling station. Himachal Pradesh went about methodically preparing a database of persons with disabilities at the block level to enrol them, educate them on the significance of voting and then finally helping them to cast their votes. 8/7/2018 Election Commission takes a giant step forward - The Economic Times https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/election-commission-takes-a-giant-step-forward/printarticle/65075518.cms 4/5 Live Market News Industry Newsletters About Us Create Your Own Ad Many states are giving them priority in voting queues. Madhya Pradesh tried making its bus stops disabled-friendly and sent dummy ballot papers for the visually disabled to familiarise them with the process. Dadra Nagar Haveli attempted wheelchair pick and drop from the residence to polling station. Bihar tried to keep all polling stations on the ground floor. The ECI has said it will establish auxiliary polling stations for the disabled, appoint disability coordinators at the level of assembly constituencies, districts and states, develop a mobile app to help the disabled to take part and ensure that photo slips are in accessible formats. The commission will set up a whole new unit – an Accessible Division – in the ECI-run International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Management in New Delhi. The ECI will hold follow-up consultations in about three months from now to assess the progress made in each state on making elections more accessible. The ECI’s initiative to engage directly with persons affected by disabilities and civil society organisations makes it one that has the potential to go far in making positive changes in society, said Sadasivan, who herself is wheelchair bound. “That they have someone like me as their accessible elections consultant, that they are getting more polling officers with disabilities to man polling booths and engaging with local stakeholders – that is a movement in itself. This may hopefully one day also pave way for persons with disabilities to also contest elections, for political parties to back their political representation, to ensure no one is left unrepresented in a democracy,” she said. Sadasivan serves as the eyes and ears of the ECI – she was among those who surveyed polling stations and told the commission what the trek to cast one’s vote entailed for a disabled person. During the July National Consultation on Accessible Elections, the ECI authorities promised that things would be set right – with more empathy and less law. The next general election will be a test on so many more counts than political. 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