It’s a little after 12 am and Chrisella Lagaria, co-founder of COINSEP “Black Light”, responds to the voice commands of the gov.gr wallet app to have your digital identity at hand and soon be able to vote at the 100th primary school in Athens. Elections for visually impaired people require appropriate preparation and even better knowledge of their rights, as she mentions when we go to the polling station together. Even to drive up to the building, a 42-year-old woman needs to show more skill than usual: due to high attendance, there are many parked cars in the school part, drivers are rushing and careless, the ramps are occupied by cars and motorcycles.

“I want to vote like everyone else”

“The options we have so far are either to directly cast the ballot we already have, subject to the consent of the legal representative, or to go on screen with him or with someone we completely trust, where after how we are read in order by the available ballots, and after we have memorized the order, we ask them to come out, and then we choose the ballots that we judge,” he describes, and adds: “Personally, I prefer to go on screen alone.I want to vote exactly like the rest of the world.” Many years ago, she ran into a court representative who insisted on going on screen with her, pointing out that it was required by law. “Which, however, was not the case,” she emphasizes. This year, approaching the hall on the first floor, which was, however, six paces from the ground, the bailiff not only rises from his seat to greet her, but also greets her by name. “It’s a lucky coincidence because I know her and she has a relative who is also blind,” Crisella says to “K” as she walks out into the schoolyard. However, despite the good intentions of the onlookers, there is a slight commotion and embarrassment in the classroom until she is able to enter the blank screen, put her voice in the ballot box, and exit without tripping or hitting anyone with her pen. white cane.

A recent ballot titled “Voting Precincts for the Disabled” does not seem to concern our blind fellow citizens. “There is provision for an area on the first floor where people with musculoskeletal disabilities can ask the election commission and the bailiff to bring the ballot box to the polling place,” he describes, “but there is no way for the blind to vote or anything like that.” Of course, the voting of the blind on the first floor makes the task easier, “because we must take into account that these are also people who have become blind with age and have grown old, and that to climb the stairs and find the hall, we need directions or someone to accompany.” Positive, according to Crisell, “is that it allows guide dogs to accompany the blind, which makes the process much easier.” While, of course, in our country accompanied by dogs do not exceed 25. “On the other hand, this suggests that the judicial representatives take the case from the hands of the disabled in front of all the participants and put it in the ballot box themselves,” she points out, “this only makes sense for those voters who have an upper limb disability, for all the rest is useless.”

Is using braille a solution?

What, after all, would be the best way to vote for visually impaired people? “The idea of ​​creating polling stations just for us would be wrong, on the one hand, because it might be really inconvenient for us to go to a center located far from our home, on the other hand, because we too might want to vote together with our relatives at neighborhood, so such a “decision” would constitute discriminatory treatment,” explains Crisella. “Using Braille, which is heard from time to time, is not an ideal solution,” she herself answers a reasonable question, “primarily because not all blind people know Braille, and those who become blind after 18 do not. have an acquaintance with writing, because they are nowhere to be found. As he recalls, “those who see do everything from their mobile phones and computers, and those who do not see do the same, with the same applications in which interferes with the software that makes the application “sound”“. In addition, Braille cannot provide secrecy of the vote, especially in small spaces. “For me, the ideal solution is electronic or even postal voting,” he concludes. “Braille could be an alternative for people who are not tech savvy.”

However, until such changes are made, Chrysella considers it necessary that the judicial representatives, who, among other things, are also responsible for serving the disabled, receive training so that they can give them instructions about how to move in space. “Let’s vote where we are registered, but let each polling station have a curator who is trained and knows the process,” she emphasizes. “I want to make this process as much as possible my own, because it is about my vote, which is of great importance and is critical for us people with disabilities.” He concludes: “No government has taken seriously our own problems, such as the labor issues that concern my colleagues.”