Disabled voters ‘dismayed’ by barriers at polls

Despite repeated promises, last week’s general election showed virtually no improvement in voting access for people with disabilities, the Barbados Council for the Disabled (BCD) said on Tuesday, renewing calls for systemic reform of polling procedures and facilities.  

The BCD’s operations manager, Roseanna Tudor, told Barbados TODAY that while no major complaints had been formally lodged, longstanding structural issues persisted — particularly for visually impaired voters and those with mobility challenges.  

She said: “That still doesn’t bring us to a point of progress from the last two elections, because you still have persons who are visually impaired. I’m going with my mother or a relative, or in another case, a neighbour and you have to go into the booth with that person, which destroys a level of secrecy of the ballot for that individual who is blind.”  

The absence of independent voting undermines what should be a fundamental democratic right, Tudor said. 

“It’s a right, it’s a human right, and it’s a huge level of trust for that person going into that polling station and hoping that, when I say put the X next to this person whom I want, they would do it… that would deter a person who is blind in some way, not everybody, to go and vote if I can’t trust somebody to vote the way I want them to vote.”  

She added that accessibility must be addressed long before election day, not left to last-minute fixes.  

“This is not to be done in a haphazard way or a reactive way, it has to be done in the planning stage where you are aware long before an election that you’re going to be using these facilities that are accessible.”  

The council is still awaiting a meeting with the Electoral and Boundaries Commission (EBC) following the polls, but was able to raise its concerns with CARICOM election observers, Tudor said. 

“When we met with the international observers, we raised a number of issues where one major one is stakeholder discussion and representation prior to these elections. We can’t wait on a last-minute system that is not properly in place.”  

Following that meeting, the council submitted a document to the Human Rights Commissioner outlining four key recommendations: a formal post-election accessibility review involving disability stakeholders; clear accessibility guidelines and measurable standards for polling stations; early consultation with disability organisations ahead of future elections; and the establishment of a structured national mechanism to collect data on the experiences of people with disabilities.  

Tudor said the matter has been raised repeatedly over the years and should no longer be delayed.  

She also questioned why people with disabilities are not permitted to use early voting facilities currently available to essential services workers.  

Tudor said: “A suggestion I had made to the observers was that early voting is allowed for the essential services. Why can’t the disabled have the option of utilising those same facilities?

“Give us the option of utilising the same facilities, it would not be so overwhelming like on the election day, where you have all persons with disabilities scrambling left, right and centre.”  

She stressed the importance of centralised national data collection to better assess voter participation and barriers.  

“It doesn’t make sense we going and doing our own private data collection… it doesn’t cover a national data collection for the real feelings of persons with disabilities.”  

Tudor said the council remains willing to work collaboratively with national authorities.  

“We are committed to working collaboratively with the national institutions like EBC and other agencies that are assigned to work with the electoral process.”  

Turning to ministerial changes, Tudor commended former minister Kirk Humphrey for advancing disability policy over the past two terms.  

“He did not just talk to us, he walked with us, he listened and he did act on a number of areas to progress where we were… he has worked tremendously in progressing our policies that we were fighting for for so long.”  

The council now looks forward to working with new minister Adrian Forde to ensure policies are translated into real change, she said.   

“We have seen progress, and what we are looking forward now with this new minister, Adrian Ford, is to put a lot of those progress that we’ve made into practice… we need to put that into lived practice. It must trickle down to persons with disabilities now.”  

Tudor also urged parliamentarians to ensure their constituency offices are accessible year-round, noting that the council had previously distributed a booklet to MPs outlining how to interact with persons with various disabilities.