The Commission announced on its website yesterday that it has modified the traditional cardboard Universal Ballot Templates (UBTs) so that voters with special needs will be able to easily identify their party of choice by the voter and these new UBTs will also facilitate the selection of that party with confidence and to minimise risks of miscast ballots. On these new templates, party identifiers are far more distinct and the sequence of party identifiers on the ballot paper has also been re-ordered.

The templates have windows numbered in Braille, with numbers in large white font so that people with different tactile, literacy, reading and sight levels can use the same template. Both the ballot papers and the templates have a tactile recognition feature to assist visually impaired voters with the correct alignment of the ballot paper in the template. Ballot papers have a circular hole punched in the bottom left corner. All the templates have a built-in tactile feature on the top right-hand corner. All voting stations will be supplied with two (2) templates, one UBT with 48 windows to accommodate those parties that will be on the national ballot, while the other UBT will be for the respective parties that will form part of the provincial ballot.

The North West’s provincial ballot will have a template for 31 parties, while the Free State will have one for 28 parties and finally, the Northern Cape template will have 21 parties. Electoral officials have been trained to assist visually impaired voters in their use and the instructions to Presiding Officers also appear on the back of the templates.

Visually impaired voters may request the assistance of the Presiding Officer or a family member or friend to help them cast their ballot for the party of their choice. They may also opt to use the UBT independently.

 For partially-sighted and sighted voters, the Commission has developed A0 posters showing the national ballot and the provincial ballot.  These will be displayed in each voting station to help the voters easily distinguish the different parties on the ballot list.

This innovation follows after 2011, when the Commission used a plastic UBT, which resulted in the steady increase in parties and candidates contesting general elections producing customised cardboard templates for voters with special needs. As the years went by, the usability of these templates improved, which resulted in the Electoral Commission winning the ‘Innovative Practice for Independent Living for Persons with Disabilities Award’, a United Nations award for this plastic UBT in 2015 in Vienna, Austria.

The Commission also stated that it will continue to consult with blind persons’ organisations and key stakeholders in the best interests of increasing access to the vote and to independent voting for the visually impaired and those with special needs.

OFM News