Absent Citizens: Disability Politics and Policy in Canada by Michael J. Prince

Author:Michael J. Prince [Prince, Michael J.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2009-04-21T16:00:00+00:00

International Experiences

International literature on electoral participation by people with disabilities is of three kinds. There are surveys of electoral systems and the experiences of voters with a disability in recent elections. There is also an extensive literature on the voting rights and experiences of Americans with disabilities and a modest literature on voting and people with disabilities in other countries.

Surveys of electoral systems and the experiences of voters with a disability in recent elections come from academics, government agencies, and a national organization representing disabled people in Britain. André Blais, Louis Massicotte, and Antoine Yoshinaka (2001) analyse restrictions on the right to vote in sixty-three democracies. Of several possible restrictions, the authors find that only two have near consensus among these nations, namely, that the minimum voting age should be eighteen and that the right to vote of ‘mentally deficient people’ should be restricted. The only countries, among this sample, that do not disenfranchise persons with a mental health disability or with an intellectual disability are Canada, Ireland, Israel, Italy, and Sweden. In most countries then, adults with mental disabilities do not have a constitutional or legal right to vote.

In the United Kingdom, a national disability organization named Scope, whose focus is people with cerebral palsy, has conducted an access survey at each general election since 1992 called the Polls Apart campaign. ‘There are approximately 10 million disabled adults in the UK, an average of 15,000 in every constituency. At a time when voter apathy and disengagement is a high political priority we must consider those voters who want to participate but are prevented from doing so’ (Scope 2005: 7). The 2005 survey, which covered 81 per cent of the constituencies in the UK, found that only 60 per cent of polling stations had level access into the building, only 64 per cent of ramps were appropriately designed (with handrails and firmly fixed), 30 per cent of stations did not display a large print copy of the ballot paper, and 28 per cent of polling stations did not provide a tactile voting device to help visually impaired electors vote independently and in secret.

In the United States, the General Accounting Office (GAO) studied voting access for people with physical disabilities for all fifty states and the District of Columbia, including access to polling places and alternative voting methods. Briefly stated, their key findings are that all states have specific provisions pertaining to voting by people with disabilities. The nature and implementation of these provisions, however, varies greatly across the states, reflecting the broad discretion afforded states under electoral laws. For example, the GAO survey found that nine states do not have specific accessibility standards established. Moreover, ‘all states offer one or more alternative voting methods or accommodations that may facilitate voting by people with disabilities whose assigned polling places are inaccessible’ (United States 2001: 6). From a Canadian perspective, the array of alternative methods seems relatively limited both across and within states. In addition, in comparison to the mandate and activities

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