Whole House Committee approves bill on independent voting for visually impaired

Parliament’s Whole House Committee, on Wednesday, has approved the bill proposing amendments to the General Elections Act calling for independent voting arrangements visually for impaired persons.

The bill was submitted by Hinnavaru MP Jeehan Mahmood on behalf of the government. Jeehan said visually impaired persons and physically disabled persons have been voting in elections with the assistance of another person to date. She stressed that the voting arrangements deprive the visually impaired of various rights guaranteed to them by law.

In the bill, the government introduces a transparent template that matches the size of the ballot paper. The template will be marked to guide where the person must tick to cast their vote for the candidate. Moreover, the candidate’s number will be written on the template in braille.

The ballot paper can be inserted into the template or the template can be aligned with the ballot paper in order to guide visually impaired persons in casting their vote.

Two amendments proposed by the committee were included in the bill during approval. The first amendment was proposed by Central Maafannu MP Ibrahim Rasheed suggesting changing the wording in the bill from ‘visually disabled persons’ to ‘visually impaired persons’. The second amendment was proposed by Hoarafushi MP Ahmed Saleem suggesting the ballot template designed to assist visually impaired persons to vote must be transparent.

MP Ibrahim Rasheed’s proposal was accepted by the votes of 39 lawmakers. 17 lawmakers had voted against accepting the proposal.

MP Saleem’s proposal was accepted by the votes of 60 lawmakers.

Parliament Speaker Mohamed Nasheed who was presiding over the committee meeting said the bill will be sent to the floor at the earliest after giving adequate time for members as stipulated by the parliament regulations.

The template proposed with the amendment is widely used across the world as a tool to allow visually impaired persons to vote independently. The amendment was formulated after consultations with the Blind and Visually Impaired Society of Maldives (BVISM).

Officials from BVISM met with the Parliament’s Human Rights Committee and Independent Institutions Committee previously over the absence of arrangements for visually impaired persons to vote independently in elections.