A few months ago, I wrote some articles surrounding voting and the need to make the whole democratic process more inclusive and open to people with visual impairments. We looked at what wasn’t working and what could work a lot better; with a specific emphasis on the provision of accessible electorial documents.
democracy should work at all levels and in turn should promote and embrace inclusivity. I was, therefore, sad to see yet another example of where this didn’t happen where live in a recent Parish by election. The main problem was that until the results had been announced, it was difficult to tell that an election was taking place and when this was due to be staged. There might have been posters put up and there could have been various forms of election literature available, but none was publicised in a format that we could access. As local residents, we’re being told our vote and our voice counts, but if you do not enable these to be used byt the denial of giving us the ifnoramtion to perform our democratic right?
I am feeding this back to Kirklees council, our local authority, who along with others, I hope, will start to push harder in making democracy actually work in the way that it is meant to.