An Coimisiún Toghcháin, the Electoral Commission of Ireland (ELC), in collaboration with Irish Wheelchair Association, National Access Programme Manager, Rosaleen Lally carried out a case study on accessibility of polling stations in the Belmullet LEA on Friday the 29th of November, General Election day 2024.
The recently published Post Electoral Event Review (PEER) report identified 40 of the 69 polling stations inspected were inaccessible to wheelchair users.
In collaboration with IWA Access Department, Hugh Burgess and Eunice Delaney from the Electoral Commission decided to carry out a case study of a number of polling stations in Belmullet, which will form a part of the Post Electoral Event Review for the General Elections 2024.
Both travelled to Belmullet on Election Day and with the support of Rosaleen Lally, and members of the IWA Belmullet Local Access Group carried out access audits on eight polling stations across the Belmullet LEA.
Not surprisingly, this audit identified a number of access issues for our members, which will feed into the (PEER) report which will be published by the Electoral Commission in the new year.
Despite inclement weather conditions, and with support for the Belmullet IWA centre, many of our members were happy to get involved in this access audit.
Members who used power chairs, manual chairs, visual impairments and intellectual disabilities all got involved, giving the Commission a really broad understanding of the various challenges encountered by our members on the day.
Issues like temporary ramps, incorrect steep gradients, lack of accessible parking, space constraints, and lack of signage were all identified on the day.
Both Eunice and Hugh commended and thanked the members of the Local Access Group for their enthusiasm and willingness to take part. Their overarching comment from the day was “if you see it you understand it”. Being able to observe our members casting their votes in a variety of polling stations gave them a real and impactful understanding of the need for huge improvements that’s required in accessibility to polling stations nationwide.
We are confident that the results of this case study will be a real driver for change and raise the standards of accessibility required for polling stations in the future.
IWA’s pre-election survey found that 77% of you reported that your local polling station was access to you. We would like to see if that was true on the day and are asking people to fill in our very short survey here.
Thank you.