New amendment calls for independent voting arrangements for visually impaired

An amendment has been proposed to the General Elections Act which states visually impaired persons who wish to cast their vote in the elections independently, without the assistance of another person, should be provided that chance. 

The first reading of the bill proposing the amendment submitted by Hinnavaru MP Jeehan Mahmood on behalf of the government took place took Monday’s parliamentary sitting.

Blind and Visually Impaired Society of Maldives (BVISM) met with the Parliament’s Human Rights Committee and Independent Institutions Committee on March 1^st with an easy solution for the issue of secrecy of votes cast by the visually impaired being compromised.

In this regard, no further changes are required to the ballot paper to ensure the secrecy of the votes of the visually impaired. The solution put forth by BVISM required the preparation of a hard material sheet matching the size of the ballot of paper which is marked to guide where the person must tick to cast their vote for a candidate.

Meanwhile, the bill proposed on Monday says that the hard material sheet is a plastic device created to assist the visually impaired by temporarily aligning with the ballot papers. In line with this, the bill states that the Elections Commission (EC) must make arrangements at all voting centers for the visually impaired to be able to vote using this device.

Furthermore, it also states that EC should provide the necessary training for officials based at voting centers for guiding visually-impaired voters on using the device to cast their vote.

Presenting the bill, MP Jeehan said its purpose was to ensure arrangements for visually impaired individuals to vote independently without the assistance of another person in order to fully guarantee the secrecy of the votes.