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Lack of facilities to help the blind exercise their voting rights [2008] KRNHRC 15 (1 January 2008)

Yim filed a complaint with the Commission that he had to have one of his family
members to vote on behalf of him in the election of the superintendent of the Seoul
Metropolitan Office of Education because there was no equipment to help the blind vote.
After an investigation, the Commission found that the Fourth Polling Station located in
2-dong, -gu, Seoul stored the equipment to assist the blind to vote in the warehouse
and did not offer the blind the equipment on the voting day.

Article 27.2 of the Disability Discrimination Act stipulates that the Korean government
and municipal governments shall provide appropriate equipment and facilities to help
people with disabilities vote, deliver information on elections to the disabled, develop and
distribute equipment to assist the disabled to vote, taking into account the types and
degrees of disabilities, and assign assistants to help the disabled vote in polling stations in
order to respect the voting right of the disabled. The Commission stated that the respondent
should have provided the complainant with special voting paper or special equipment to
enable the complainant to vote without help of others. It concluded that the respondent did
not fulfill its duty to provide appropriate assistance to the complainant in accordance with
the principle of secret voting, one of the fundamental principles for democratic voting, and
violated Article 27.2 of the Disability Discrimination Act, as the complainant had to resort
to others in exercising his voting right.

Therefore, the Commission recommended that the Chairman of the District Election
Management Committee and the authorities in charge of the Fourth Polling Station provide
training to officials working in the polling stations and supervise and monitor the officials
to ensure that the voting right of the blind is respected.