MSPs to experience voting with visual impairments

Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) will be able to experience voting whilst blind or partially sighted this week.

A mocked-up ballot box at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh will allow MSPs to cast votes wearing spectacles that simulate various sight loss conditions.

MSPs taking part will have access to a Tactile Voting Device, a transparent plastic template that fits over the ballot paper, which is available on request in polling stations.

The aim is to highlight the difficulty that blind and visually impaired people have when trying to vote independently. The mocked-up ballot box has been organised by RNIB Scotland and sponsored by Greenock and Inverclyde MSP, Stuart McMillan.

Around 178,000 people in Scotland are living with a significant degree of sight loss.

Last year, a UK-wide survey by RNIB found that only 19% of blind and 44% of partially sighted voters felt they could vote independently and in secret under the current voting system. 91% of blind people and 54% of partially sighted people said they had to get another person to help them to vote.

James Adams, director of RNIB Scotland, said: "Voting independently and confidentially is one of the basic rights of our democracy, but we know that blind and partially sighted people still experience problems doing so. One person, for instance, told us the ballot paper for his Scottish Parliament regional list had 16 entries and was too long for the standard 12-box Tactile Voting Device template to cover.”

He added: "RNIB Scotland has been working with the Scottish Government Elections Team and the Electoral Commission in Scotland to explore alternative voting methods and how polling stations can be made better."

UK voting arrangements have been declared unlawful by the High Court. In 2019, Mr Justice Swift said that “enabling a blind voter to mark ballot papers without being able to know which candidate they are voting for is a parody of the electoral process.”