Election Procedures have been simplified for Voters with Disabilities
The Central Election Commission (CEC) has introduced to NGOs the activities conducted to ensure the involvement of persons with disabilities (PWDs) into elections. The meeting was held at the Courtyard Marriott Hotel.
The Special Commission has simplified the election procedures for PWDs. In particular, there have been created mobile groups and accessible voter’s booths. The mobile groups will help the voters with disabilities to move to election districts while the accessible voter’s booths will be designed to address the needs of PWDs.
Besides, there have been constructed 108 ramps for wheelchair users at 73 election divisions.
Based on the data obtained from the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Assistance, the Special Commission has verified the 8523 voters with disabilities and defined their individual needs. As a result, there have been verified 4792 blind, 1829 deaf people and 1902 wheelchair users. The majority of them preferred to vote at their home places.
The participants of the meeting have also discussed the future plans. In particular, the Commission is going tosalome-gipa.jpg make 39 permanent ramps, to spread the ads on election procedures with sign language translation, to provide the sign language translation of the debates scheduled on September 18 on the Public Broadcaster, to print the Election Code with Braille print, etc.
The meeting was arranged with the initiative of the Central Election Commission (CEC) and the International Fund for Election Systems (IFES). As to the working group, it consisted of the following organizations: IFES, the Public Defender’s Office, the Representative of the European Union in Georgia, the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure, the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Assistance, the Coalition for the Development of Civil Society, Georgian Union of Deaf Persons, Georgian Union of Blind Persons, Coalition for Independent Living, Georgian Public Broadcaster and Imedi Radio.