In 2018, the National Assembly of Persons with Disabilities (NAPD) created a brief with lessons learned from audits conducted in the Poltava region of Ukraine. The brief was shared with government officials of other regions in the country during a project supported by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
A PDF of the document is available below. The English translation of this document is below.
The Constitution of Ukraine and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by Ukraine in 2009, guarantee people with disabilities the right and opportunity to participate in electoral and political processes on an equal basis with others.
However, the realization of rights is accompanied by significant obstacles: the architectural inaccessibility of election process objects, limited access to information, lack of reasonable accommodation.
The National Assembly of Persons with Disabilities of Ukraine and the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES Ukraine) conducted an audit of 1269 polling stations for persons with disabilities and other small-scale voters in the Poltava region (2016), prepared recommendations for improving accessibility and participated in the planning of the change strategy on levels of the region (2017-2018).
This allowed us to develop a universal methodology for disseminating the experience of the initiative in other regions of Ukraine. The methodology involves step-by-step planning and auditing of the availability of facilities where polling stations are located, as well as strategic planning to improve accessibility.
This issue is one of the subjects studied during the scheduled trainings (2018) in the Zhytomyr and Cherkasy regions of Ukraine. The trainings will involve experts, including those who implemented the project in the Poltava region.
The training will allow authorities and non-governmental organizations to plan and implement decisions on ensuring the availability of polling stations.