ePetition - Trial online voting for visually impaired and other disabled members of the electorate

Petition details

Trial online voting for visually impaired and other disabled members of the electorate

We the undersigned petition the Council to request that the Cabinet Office allows you to trial online voting for visually impaired members of the electorate, as well as for other disabled people, who currently find it at best very difficult and at worst impossible to vote independently and in secret.

The 2010 Equality Act gives blind and partially sighted voters the same right to vote in secret as all other voters. However, in practice, we are unable to do so. Registering to vote, having access to information to help me decide my vote and the process of putting a cross on the ballot paper - are all impossible without help from other people.

Online voting offers us a way to vote independently. We ask that the Council asks the Government if it can trial online voting for groups such as the visually impaired at the next general election. The Government is keen to increase voting accessibility for the disabled and the Cabinet Office is able to grant local authorities the remit to trial new ways of voting.

Please support blind and partially sighted people's right to vote independently and in secret.

This Petition ran from 14/12/2018 to 14/12/2018 and has now finished.

43 people signed this Petition.

Council response

Response sent 14/12
Further to your E petition submission. I confirm receipt and have forwarded you petition to the relevant department within the Cabinet Office for review. I have now received feedback from the department that are responsible for running pilots and they have provided the following feedback.

They have confirmed that there will be no plans for running a pilot for any form of online voting. They are firmly in the view that online voting would be a high-risk area to explore and may be subject to levels of online fraud. On this basis, the cabinet office does not intend to explore this area of voting.