For some people, marking an X on a ballot is as simple as walking into a polling station and grabbing a pencil. But Delynne Bortis says Elections Saskatchewan has to consider challenges facing voters with disabilities — from physical accessibility of polling stations to making sure their vote is legible.
“When you don’t have grip and you don’t have the strength to push down to get your ballot read very well, that has been one of my biggest conundrums … larger grip pencils, clipboards, trying to hold those little ballot slips,” said Bortis, who sustained a spinal cord injury in a vehicle accident when she was a teenager.
Bortis is a long-time staff member of Spinal Cord Injury Saskatchewan and recently became the organization’s executive director.
In Saskatchewan, close to 30 per cent of people identify as having a disability. Some of them say they need to do additional planning to make sure their vote counts.
Though data on voting access for disabled Saskatchewanians is hard to come by, research published by Elections Canada shows that voters with disabilities were five per cent less likely to vote than their non-disabled peers in 2019, with more severe disabilities being directly connected to an increased likelihood they wouldn’t vote.
Elections Saskatchewan hosts an accessibility page on its website that details what steps are being taken to consider the needs of Saskatchewan’s electorate, including training elections workers about accessibility.
Tim Kydd, the senior director of outreach, policy, and communications at Elections Saskatchewan, said that after each of the last two elections, the organization has debriefed with groups that represent people with disabilities.
“It’s very helpful to us to hear from them about what went well in their most previous voting experience, and what are some things that we can improve on.”
Elections Saskatchewan has to ensure the polling station itself is physically accessible, including aspects like whether door frames are wide enough. Kydd estimates that fewer than 10 of its polling stations do not meet the accessibility expectations laid out by the province, largely in rural situations where they are the only venue available in a particular town.
Whether a polling station is considered accessible will be noted on people’s voter information card.
Some voters with disabilities may choose to submit their ballot via mail or be part of the homebound voting process. They can also drop their ballot off at the curbside as long as someone else has entered the polling station to alert the staff, so that they can receive the ballot.
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One broad change to the accessibility regulations is that people are allowed to bring a device with them to facilitate communication, whether that’s because of their disability or a language barrier.
“Bringing in a device — prior to 2020 — that was against the law to do that,” Kydd said. “We had that changed and we encourage people to bring their device in, same as they use for their everyday life.”
He said service animals are also welcome, and people can bring in their own pencils or markers to register their vote.
Transportation remains an issue
Bortis said much of the issue for disabled people, particularly in rural constituencies, is a lack of transport. She is hopeful that the expansion to a voting week will make it easier for people with certain accessibility needs to get out and vote.
“Opening it up to six-day voting, which they’re doing this year, is really awesome. If you have people that are on dialysis or something that takes up their whole day related to their disability, they have different days to be able to [vote].”
Bortis said that while people with disabilities have fewer complaints around election accessibility than there may have once been, there needs to be significant investment in transportation for these voters.
“We need more money from every perspective in order to make our rural areas more accessible, whether that’s in terms of the buildings, whether that’s in terms of roads and infrastructure, whether that’s also including system navigation and anything that is offered [by] the health-care system, home care, etc.”
‘People with disabilities need to be heard’
Twenty-seven-year-old Mirela Puszkar said she’s voted in every election and plans to do so once again. But as someone with a visual impairment as well as a diagnosis of ADHD and autism, she faces some challenges that other people don’t.
“The thing that makes it challenging for me to cast my vote is sight sometimes, to see what party I’m voting for on the ballot because it’s all black and white [and] if I can recall from last election, it’s just very tiny lettering,” she said, adding that polling stations can also be noisy and overwhelming for her.
Despite the challenges, she said it’s important for people like her to be vocal and advocate for change, and she hopes Elections Saskatchewan keeps working to make voting accessible to everyone.
“A lot more people with disabilities need to be heard. Seniors need to be heard. Everybody needs to be heard, not just certain people.”
Election week in Saskatchewan continues from now until Oct. 28.
