In  this blog, you will discover:

• How accessible voting exists in theory, but not always in practice.
• Blind voters across Scotland are still experiencing inconsistent support at polling stations.
• A lack of staff training and misguided assumptions continue to undermine disabled people’s right to vote independently and in secret.

The very foundation of democracy is equality.

The right to vote independently and in secret should never depend on which polling station you attend, or whether staff happen to know how accessibility equipment works on the day.

Yet for many blind and partially sighted voters across Scotland, this is a familiar reality.

In this series, Passion4Social team members share personal experiences of inaccessible systems and services that continue to exclude disabled people, despite promises of progress.

Following recent changes to voting accessibility measures in Scotland, our Lead Content Writer, Allana Grant, reflects on her experience voting in last Thursday’s Scottish elections — and why accessible voting still feels like a postcode lottery.

Promised independence, familiar disappointment

Ahead of the election, I wrote about Scotland’s introduction of tactile ballot overlays paired with audio ballot papers for blind and visually impaired voters.

For the first time in years, I felt cautiously optimistic about going to vote, like we might be on the cusp of meaningful change.

The concept itself is simple and effective, having been designed by people with lived experience of sight loss: a tactile guide fitted to the ballot paper is used in conjunction with an audio recording explaining the candidates and corresponding numbers, enabling blind people to cast their vote independently and in secret.

It is exactly the sort of solution many of us have been suggesting for years.

So, on Election Day, I arrived at my polling station hopeful that things had finally changed, but unfortunately, I was soon reacquainting myself with those old feelings of frustration and exclusion.

Within seconds of exchanging hellos, it became clear that polling staff had not received adequate training on how the system worked.

In fact, they were not even aware of its existence.

They showed me the new Braille ballot guides, but when I asked for the audio ballot, nobody knew how to access it.

Make no mistake, they did attempt to assist me wherever possible and could not have been more pleasant if they’d tried.

Phoning the election helpline, they were directed to the Electoral Commission, which then pointed them towards a broken link on North Lanarkshire Council’s website.

So after several minutes of awkward “You’d think they would…” and “I don’t understand why….”, I once again had to rely on my partner to cast my vote.

No secrecy, or independence; just a familiar feeling of dented expectations.

Same election, other side of the coin

Later, having visited my partner’s polling station, we asked the staff whether they knew about the new system.

Although they had heard of it, they also had no idea how to access the audio ballot.

Yet on the very same Election Day, a friend voting in Edinburgh had an entirely different experience.

As soon as she entered the polling station, staff approached her with an MP3 player where she could access the audio ballot.

The tactile guide was attached to the ballot paper with a paperclip, and she was directed straight to the booth to vote independently.

That experience just proves how efficiently the concept works.

It was, as I said, designed by people with experience of living with sight loss, and when implemented correctly, it provides exactly what disabled voters have been asking for: independence, privacy, and dignity.

The problem is inconsistent implementation.

Ending postcode policies

This is not a criticism of polling staff.

The people I encountered last Thursday genuinely wanted to make the process easy for me, but they had clearly not been given the training needed to support disabled voters properly.

Their lack of confidence really communicated itself to me.

Once again, we see how accessibility measures are introduced without effective, sustainable implementation plans behind them.

There also remains an underlying assumption that disabled people can simply rely on a companion to assist them with voting, but what if someone does not have a partner or family member available to do that?

More to the point, why should they have to sacrifice their privacy and independence in the first place?

Disabled people deserve the same democratic rights as everyone else.

The right to vote independently and in secret should not be aspirational or well-meaning; it should be a given.

Right now, the only real secret around here is why accessible voting in Scotland is still a postcode lottery for disabled voters.

Read more from this series:

• When accessibility is an afterthought: Patients pay the price
• When accessibility is an afterthought: Cupid’s arrow never flies true
• When accessibility is an afterthought: Locked out at checkout
• When accessibility is an afterthought: The Valentine’s dinner that almost ended in disaster