Trying to vote is a challenge
Finally, we have identified an experience more painful than visiting the dentist. In Ontario, voting for us, persons who are blind, is more traumatic than a root canal procedure.
Shortly after the 1999 election was called, we received a print only information sheet. We called Elections Ontario for a copy in a format we, as voters who are blind, could read. We were informed that a tape recording had been ordered from CNIB but no delivery time was known and we should call back in a few weeks. After going to and fro for some time, it was agreed to send us an electronic version by the Internet.
At the same time, we requested, for the first time, information about how persons who are blind vote and our accessibility options for casting our ballots. There was no information offered or available but we were told that we would receive a call back at a later time. We never did, and several subsequent requests were similarly filed away without the requested information ever being sent to us.
Next in the voting process came the enumeration card in print only. It would have been nice to have had some tactile marking or even a braille name on all cards, so that when people who are blind received them, it would be possible to separate these cards from the junk mail.
Because we could not vote on election day, we called for information about the advance poll. We called the Returning Office for our area for information about advanced polls and the provisions to facilitate the casting of secret ballots by voters who are blind. We were told that the locations were published in the newspapers. We were further told that we HAD to use a notched ballot. A later conversation with the Chief Returning Officer for Gloucester Carleton confirmed this information. We were further brusquely notified that she was concerned with the needs of “the broader masses”. The advance poll locations had not been selected with accessibility in mind and adequate, frequent public transportation service was not a consideration for selection.
The next morning, one day prior to the advanced poll, we managed to speak with the chief electoral officer for the province.
The conversation commenced with him delivering a lengthy lecture on why we should not use a template. He did not recommend them. He said that thousands of templates had been printed and circulated through the province. Very few would be used. It was a waste of money. It was further stated that the notched ballots were tested with eight persons who were blind. However, he was unable to tell us how to use them to vote with confidence.
With respect to the location of polling stations and advanced polling locations, we were informed once again that the information was published in the newspapers. We were told that at the bottom of the advertisement was a request that family and friends inform people who could not read about the information in the advertisements of voting locations and related information. As we indicated that we had no friends or acquaintances who were willing to do this for us, it was agreed to send us an e-mail with locations, dates and hours of operation of advanced polling stations we could use. He did call the local returning officer and after some time the templates were located and an assurance was given that they would be available. However, since they were discovered on the day prior to the advanced poll, we were apprehensive that no one had been trained on how to provide information and directions to voters arriving at polling locations without the ability to access print direction signs. Staff most likely would not know how to prepare the ballot with
the template for proper use by a voter who is blind.
So, it was with trepidation and uncertainty that we faced the challenge of voting in the advance poll. We called for directions from the bus stop to the polling station. Despite self identifying several times that we were persons who are blind the directions consisted over and over of the confident statement that “you will see the signs.” We finally determined after persistent questioning that the polling station was five doors down a strip mall after a parking lot next to a Macdonald’s restaurant.
We set out on local busses to vote. Before we would return home, it would be two and a half hours later. Eventually, we arrived at the strip mall in an adjacent suburb. The pathway from the street was half the width of a sidewalk and sloped on the side of a bank. We crossed in front of the repair bays of a garage and encountered an even narrower sidewalk blocked by open doors and gas feeder pipes and valves, to mention just a few of the obstacles that made the sidewalk impassable. Eventually, we were assisted through the building and entered the voting station.
It seems that the back of the industrial building faced the street and not the front. While there, several sighted voters came in and voiced concern about the difficulty they experienced finding the location. For us, it was finally time to vote.
The template and ballot was proffered and we marked our x. The attendant was not able to describe the way to fold the ballot and this meant that one of us folded it with the voting surface exposed. It would have been helpful to be told that the ballot has three creases in it, fold the left hand section over the middle and then the right hand section with the notches over the top of the other two. If the notches are on the left of the folded ballot it is folded in a way to preserve the secrecy of the vote cast. Finally, we found a valuable use for the notches as tactile folding markers.
Marking our x was also made very difficult because of the small size of the spaces for placing an x and thus the small size of the template holes. These spaces are at least three times smaller than the spaces provided on ballots in federal elections. This stingy space means that you can not use a second finger in the space provided to feel where the pencil point is as you mark an x. The federal system works and Ontario should seriously and honestly review its election procedures to ensure a welcoming and helpful environment for citizens who are blind to vote. We voted but felt like second class citizens whose vote was discouraged at every step of the way by Election Ontario officials.