MAYOR Gary Lee, on behalf of Nambucca Valley Council’s Disability Access and Inclusion Committee, wrote to the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) to raise issues regarding access to polling booths for disabled voters in the days before Saturday’s Federal election.
Mayor Lee told NOTA he received a response just two days later, leaving him satisfied that all booths in the Nambucca Valley on Saturday included appropriate provisions for invalid and disabled voters.
“The right to vote is a fundamental aspect of democracy, and it is crucial that all Australians, regardless of their physical abilities, can participate fully in the electoral process,” Mayor Lee told Acting Electoral Commissioner Jeff Pope in an official letter.
“As such, I kindly request that the Australian Electoral Commission take immediate steps to ensure that all voting places are fully accessible for people with disabilities, both in terms of the physical buildings and the ability to go inside and vote at a booth.”
A spokesperson for the AEC explained that when planning for elections several months prior to polling day, divisions review the allocation of materials to all polling places and can request additional products including accessible vote screens if required.
“For this federal election in the Nambucca Valley area, we secured council premises and local schools,” the spokesperson said.
“I can confirm that the early voting centre had fully accessible services, and on election day, there were three polling places with fully accessible services and six polling places with assisted services.”
All polling places (on the day and early voting) are supplied with two accessible voting screens.
In addition, each division has access to five additional screens in the out posted centre which can be allocated if they become aware of any extra requirements.
“Our supply chain management team also holds a contingent amount of cardboard including the accessible screens which we are able to rapidly deploy to locations if needed,” the spokesperson said.
Many other disabled and invalid voters choose to cast their vote by post in the weeks before election day.
Councillor Susan Jenvey said she had worked on voting booths in both State and Federal elections for approximately ten years, and didn’t see disability access as a problem.
She explained that booth workers assess anyone with age, disability, mobility or illness issues and make arrangements for them to vote if required, even sometimes voting from a car on the road outside with an AEC official present.
“There is no shame in voting from cars,” she told Council’s recent meeting.
“I have brought many AEC officials out to cars.
“It is an absolute convenience; it only takes a couple of minutes.
“All the venues that I have worked at have wheelchair accessibility… (and) I think it’s a system that works,” she said.
Mayor Lee said the letter was just to advise the AEC that community concerns exist, and he would like to see voting offered to those with disabilities in a manner uniform to that offered to others.
“This came up because some people have contacted me about going to voting booths and they found that the boxes were too high,” he said.
“It’s basically to find out if they can be (treated) the same as abled people,” he said.
By Ned COWIE
