A revision to Turkey’s election law is expected to be made to enable citizens with visual impairments to vote without requiring assistance, ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Deputy Chairperson Hayati Yazıcı said Monday.
The AK Party and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have prepared a draft for a new election law, which was recently accepted by the Turkish Parliament’s Constitutional Committee and will be debated in Parliament.
Consisting of 15 articles, the draft was submitted to the Turkish Parliament with the joint signature of the AK Party and the MHP.
The draft proposes the elimination of the condition for political parties to establish parliamentary groups to be able to run in elections and will require parties to complete organizing in 41 provinces six months ahead of the elections.
The proposal will also restrict changing addresses before the elections to vote for relatives in local elections to prevent "electoral migrations." Instead, the electorate's address in the past year will be considered their residence.
Yazıcı noted that people with sight loss will be able to vote secretly with exclusive ballots prepared using accessible templates, potentially one with writing in Braille.
“With the implementation of this revision, we will be able to protect the secrecy of the vote,” Yazıcı said, adding that it will put an end to the problems faced by blind voters.
While Yazıcı did not elaborate on the exact details of the accessible ballot, other countries, such as the U.S., have been offering audio ballots, ballots with large print and other low vision features.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) requires all countries to “guarantee to persons with disabilities political rights and the opportunity to enjoy them on an equal basis with others.”
