As the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters considers submissions into the Inquiry on the 2016 Federal Election, Vision Australia is calling for a re-examination of the benefits that accessible electronic voting could deliver to the blindness and low vision community.
Karen Knight, Vision Australia General Manager of Advocacy and Engagement, believes that the example provided through the iVote system in the 2011 and 2015 NSW State elections, demonstrates that it is possible to successfully deploy new technology to securely record votes in an election.
“We applaud the NSW Electoral Commission for delivering this technology and then extending the benefits to the broader community, which is making the service more cost effective every time it’s used," Ms Knight observed.
“We all recall the painfully slow process of awaiting a result, as absentee and postal votes were counted after the recent election, and we were pleased to read about the public debate that followed concerning the merits of electronic voting systems.
“The NSW iVote system has demonstrated reliability in two successive State elections now and the confidence of the broader community is growing in this technology. The increased number of people using this system to cast their vote is proof enough, growing from around 47,000 in 2011 to almost 284,000 in 2015."
Initially developed to make voting accessible for people who are blind or have low vision, the iVote system was made available in NSW to a limited group that included voters with disability, people with restricted mobility, remote and rural voters and people outside the State on polling day.
At the recent federal election, voters who are blind or have low vision had two main choices: being assisted to vote at a polling place with someone filling in the ballot for them, or telephone voting, which was assisted by a call centre operator and witnessed by an independent verifier.
“We don’t want to replace the social traditions of attending a polling booth or buying a treat from the local cake stall or sausage sizzle on election day. But we do know that not being able to vote independently and in secret at Federal elections is a growing frustration for people who are blind or have low vision – especially those living in NSW who have been able to vote using a superior method in the past two State elections.
“We urge the Committee to reconsider the many benefits that could be made available to the blindness and low vision community, if a similar system to iVote were developed for use during Federal elections," Ms Knight concluded.
The Vision Australia submission into the 2016 Federal election Inquiry is available online on the Parliament of Australia website.