EU Elections and Accessible Voting

Niamh Ní Hoireabhaird is an Irish disability activist and freelance journalist. Earlier this year she completed her MA in Journalism, Media and Globalisation with a specialisation in Political Communication. She wrote her thesis on the use of accessible communications for people with intellectual disabilities in politics.

In this episode, we take discuss accessibility in EU elections, barriers to voting and political participation of Disabled People.

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hello and welcome to season two of our podcast on our terms in which we dive into the heart of European politics to experience that matter to the disability community. I'm your host, Florian Sanden, coordinator at the European Network on Independent Living. And today, I'm thrilled to be hosting. Niamh Ní Hoireabhaird, for our third episode entitled Do Elections and Accessible Voting Levers, an Irish activist and freelance journalist. Earlier this year, she completed her master of Arts, Journalism, Media and Globalization with a specialization in political communication. We also wrote Hit Thesis on the use of accessible communications for people with intellectual disabilities and politics. Together. We will explore the accessibility issues around the EU elections, the barriers and the importance of an inclusive election. So without further ado, let's dive into this insightful conversation. Hi Niamh. Hi, friend. Thanks for having me. How are you today? I'm doing very well. I'm excited to speak to you about this. If you had a chance to celebrate your the completion of your master. I have actually. I got married last week, so it was kind of a joint celebration. And for all the good things happening, then Christmas is coming. So extra festive. So it's a good time in my life. It's good that so many good things are happening. Okay, so you are disability activist. Maybe before we go to the other questions, do you want to tell us a bit about or which particular issues you are active and how your being activist and activist? So I originally going to disperse the activism when I turned 19, I started college in Dublin and I was diagnosed with a progressive neuromuscular disorder called Friedrich's Toxic Eye when I was 13 and I'm now 27. So I spent quite a while with that. But then when I started college, it really opened my eyes to the different barriers that people with disabilities face in the world, ranging from very simple things like issues I had with public transport and my wheelchair, and different barriers and education, getting reasonable accommodations and and then yeah, from there I kind of looked into the wider world and situation that exists for people with disabilities and politics and health care issues on housing, different things like this. So in my journalism, I write about disability issues and different things that are happening not just in Ireland but also in the world. So and yeah, I became interested in disparity rights from there on, and I decided to take an academic turn and pursue a master's degree and maybe a Ph.D. will follow in the future. But for the moment, I'm happy as I am. that's good. I was so deterred them after university, I did not want to pursue a Ph.D. anymore. It was a deterrent during honestly. Okay, that's very interesting, Judge. You should write for the hope that you could write for the homepage or something where you wanted to boost your journalistic record to get more disability. That is totally what we want to talk about. The European elections today. So in your view, how can individuals who are not directly involved in shaping EU policy or influencing elections still play a pivotal role in promoting disability rights and fostering positive change within the political arena? I think that the simplest answer I can give you there, and I don't know if it's the one you're looking for or not, but simply by voting, informing themselves about hush hush is their ongoing Europe or their own their own nations. But I'm I'm sure well, we'll get into it later. But as you know, voting and informing yourself about these things, it may seem like a very simple answer to that question, but it's certainly not always possible for people, people with disabilities in particular. So, yeah, there really is no simple answer to the question of kind of so about the stars. But again, that's the the area in which I hope you'll get color voting and informing yourself is very easy, accessible thing to do. But currently it's it's just not what people say, Well what can we do? How can we motivate more disabled people to go into politics, into to join political parties? So I think increased accessibility and just the information that is out there. But parties, this is the thing I focused on in my thesis in relation to Ireland, the Irish political parties and how they communicate their information, their electronic information to disabled people in order intellectually disabled people in Ireland. And then it was it was very eye opening, I think, and very, very upsetting to realize that in Ireland, a country that has over 22% of the population are people with disabilities as of the most recent census done to the political parties and catering specifically to these people, when I brought up and that they could communicate their information through Braille or sign language or easy to read materials, plain English materials, it's something I discovered that these parties, they simply haven't considered it in the past, and I really hope they will going forward. But yeah, that's a complete tangent I just went off on there. Sorry. If you want to steer me in the right direction. No, no, no. There is no right or wrong direction yeah. But this is so strange. I mean, these are people, as you say, the numbers. So if I don't know, in one area yet, my area where I live in Brussels, if together with 28 others I would go to the local chapter of the party. We could basically take it over and then and make sure some of us get into the list. It's a bit strange that we're not doing this as it really is when you consider how many Europeans with disabilities are there, estimated by including Europe to be 100 million people with disabilities living in the European Union. So you would expect to see parties catering their information towards these people and getting them more involved in politics so we can have a diverse representation of voices. But and you know that in place in the case thus far and then I really would have hoped to have seen an increased effort from political parties coming up to the 2024 elections were always to have six months. So a lot can be done in those six months for people with disabilities who want to engage more of our politics. But as we go forward in the future, I really hope see political parties making this change because it doesn't just benefit people with disabilities, you know, offering information in easy trade or plain English. It can benefit migrants or people who don't use the nation's official language. So it's not right. And they're French language. So yeah, as with all accessibility features, it doesn't just benefit people to surface and people really need to open their eyes. Now. Yeah, Yeah. Well last week, like we are going to going to publish, we did a survey recently about access active and passive participation in the European elections. And I think you also just need to encourage disabled people to be more like being active in politics. It's not that getting into a position where you can go and get some kind of offers, some kind of position. It's not that hard actually. Basically, you just have to go through the chapter meetings to regularly get along with people and then from time to time the lists go round and then you enter yourself and then you are at the end, you are running. You don't even have to say particularly smart things. It's more important to get along with people. At least this was my experience. It's basically a series of public meetings just to chat about politics. That's very true. Yeah, and it's true for Germany at least probably in Ireland too. But yes, I know of very few disabled politicians we have here in Ireland, but the ones that we do have are very good. And and it really it really speaks to the fact that we still have people with disabilities kind of contributing to the narrative and influencing government policies and, you know, local government policies, legislation and how that goes. And I I'm not very confident about and serve our end in that respect, like how many disabled politicians there are different European countries. But I'm I would expect a quite a similar race which is another race. But that definitely needs to change. But we have discussed passive political participation and running for office. But let's turn to active political participation voting. Do you think the voting system is accessible to disabled people? And I don't think it is. And I say that I think many academics would agree with me and say it's not accessible and includes in Europe and estimates that there are, as I said, 100 million people in its thirties in the EU. And not all of these people have the right to vote. There are estimated to be 800,000 people with disabilities unable to vote in European elections because of legal capacity lost. And millions of these people can vote because of lack of accessibility. So and you know, it's it's quite eye opening to hear it put like that that there are millions of people being deprived of their basic democratic right to vote because the information is not available in an accessible format. And I think there is a very easy thing we as people can do to change that. But I'm it's just a trend that has current sadly into Europe itself, personally encounter difficulties due to the difficulties with voting. Personally, I've only ever encountered in one difficulty. As I said earlier, I'm a wheelchair user and the first time I went to vote was when I was 18 and no, I'm 19. Sorry. But then the and the school in which the voting center was the voting pool was up a few steps. And I just I couldn't get in without help. Luckily, at that point in my disability journey, in the progression of my disease, it was as simple as standing. I'll put on my wheelchair and, you know, linking and linking arms with someone and having them help me. Walker button things like either that's very simple solution to a story, but it shouldn't have to have been that way. And most solutions just aren't that simple. And so thankfully that only ever happened to me. The one time I was going to vote. But that really did open my eyes. That time that invite was a full time wheelchair user. I simply just couldn't have gone off those stairs and like I couldn't. No, but I'm yeah, that, that did set me on the path of being interested in politics and could the the world we're living in and how simple physical barriers can prevent us from, you know, accessing these and or purchasing voting, these simple democratic things like voting. But then so yeah, as I said, that really did start me on my journey and got me thinking about this. But I briefly had to look, I have to say on your CV on LinkedIn before this interview, this exchange, it recommended correctly that you have been involved with a political party yourself. Yes. Yes. So I was involved with the Green Party, and I'm currently involved with the Green Party here in Ireland. And a few years ago, I think three years ago, gosh, time flies. But and I was contacted by then to draft inclusion for equality and diversity and inclusion policy sorry, the acronym always gets me. But yeah, so that was a great experience for me because then I could, you know, get an insight into more than just what it was. Three A disabled person interested in politics. There are other minority needs and that I don't have particular lived experience in dealing with but and it definitely was a really good example of how disabled people can contribute their voice into the narrative and policies and legislation that exist to build a system or a country. And so I was very fortunate to have done that. Yeah. And are you still active within the Green Party? Imagine becoming a politician yourself and a politician. Maybe in the future I'll keep you. I'll keep you updated. Okay. Do you see challenges for disabled people which are specific to the European elections? Was it similar rather and similar? Of course. But there is the the added. The other difficulty is and people with disabilities in many European countries so had their right stand for election and so the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities the sewer paddy and enshrines the right to vote and the right for people with disabilities to be elected. But and there are so many restrictions with the in the European Union for people with intellectual disabilities in particular, who are under a guardianship placed on them by and the government in the country they live in. And so there are 16 member states in which people with intellectual disabilities living under guardianship don't have the full right to vote a stand for election. And so that's it's really just mind boggling to me that I'm that can exist in a modern democracy, thankfully here in Ireland and people that distresses can vote and they do had the right some for election. But in the majority of European Union states that just in the case for New what what do we have to do to to change this and that is a bit more of a complicated question, but I think it's a question that does have an answer. I mean, and Asia, of the 27 member states, there are ten they'll have or ten or 11 that have made this transition to allowing people, intellectual disabilities to vote in some projects. And so change can happen, does happen. And I'll be very slowly. And I definitely do think part of the problem is the mindsets of and people across Europe, people across the world, the them people with intellectual disabilities have no interest in being politically engaged. And as well as they they can't they and don't have the ability to critically think and analyze things for. And that really just simply is not the case. And I don't know how I'd say that more and where eloquently but it's just it's really untrue and and I think it will take a longer time for mindsets to be changed. But we we are seeing change happening. But I'm certain legislation does have to be introduced to protect these people under democratic rights in different countries and personal status. So I can't speak to it on that. But yeah, there just is a solution to this problem that can be employed. Now, I'm also I think the institutionalization would help. What institutionalization people in institutions deserve. People, institutions cannot vote up so thin. I mean, and here in Ireland we have assisted decision making. So, you know, it's put a very simply, a person with intellectual disability can have people around them, people they trust to help them make these important decisions. And I would like to see something similar put in place across European EU states. But as you said, institutions are still a big problem, particularly in Eastern Europe and then South Central Europe as well. But we're kind we haven't yet, but hopefully will progress past the point that in the future, yeah, abolishing guardianship regimes would also comes to mind. Sorry about this. What we could do abolishing guardianship. Yes, of course. Yeah. I mean, I wrote an article about a year and a half ago at this point about forced sterilization that happens within the European Union. And I learned a lot from that about guardianship in different countries and the importance of allowing people to make their own decisions. You know, that sends like a very obvious thing to say. But I don't think in many people's minds is a very obvious thing, that in these people should have autonomy over everything, you know, something as complicated as forced sterilization and abortion to just your most basic democratic right. People really should have autonomy in these instances. Yeah. Yeah. And other other things, of course, more difficult tackling prejudice, stigmatization in society. So do the people would be willing to vote for a disabled person, but also changing like, well, would you that aging disabled people convincing them that they can do it? And lots of challenges. Yeah I mean and I was speak person on this one but I'm having thought about becoming a politician, engaging more in politics and in the future kind of it does intimidate me as kind of someone with a really good education. And I'm very supportive family who have always told me I can do utterly anything on them, aren't I? I worry about meeting barriers, barriers in people's mindsets, the people. It's those things in politics. And I think if I'm feeling this way, I must. People with intellectual disabilities feel who have been told their whole lives that they can't even vote. You know, they shouldn't be involved in politics at the most basic level. So yeah, it really is an issue of mindset. I know not totally, but I'm, you know, confronting people's prejudices and, you know, biases and things like that. And it really does make problem. I have to say, this conversation is kind of motivating me. I would really like to get to know a group of disabled people and take over chips off at the party and then perhaps write how to do with instruction manual about do about it. See, when I have the time, every next step. Are there any successful examples of accessible voting initiatives, practices you are aware of that we could learn from? So again, I'm on speaking and all about Ireland, but that's where a lot of my kind of expertise is, is But I'm here in Ireland when we have a referendum to change the constitution, the government is obligated to provide information to every household while what voting yes on no in the referendum means and and the implications of that. And So with the referendum because then the government is obligated to provide that information and the government's aware about they have a significant number of people dispersed who's living in the country. The government then offers this information to every household in kind of a plain English version that is easier to read for people with disabilities. And I've spoken to Down Syndrome Ireland, both this and they're really great and they work to, you know, draft up their information, translate it into an easy to read version on them. But that kind of system is still in place for local, national or EU elections because the government is not obligated to provide the information about those things. So it's up to the political parties to make this change. But, you know, from the anecdote, so to say, we can see that, you know, there is a way to get this information out there. And I can be done correctly, but and we need to employ something like that on much larger scale. Can we have to enact an. Okay, that's a very interesting aspect. I had not heard that Ireland is getting such a constitutional change. Would you could can you share any personal stories, experiences of individuals overcoming these various. And so in my research for my piece, I spoke to one person told me who had previous he worked in a a day center for people intellectual disabilities. And they told me during their time in this station tour when I was coming up to a voting period, like an election, and they were approached multiple times by the people in the center to learn about what was going on. Why would they sing people's faces? Let's impose to state so many different questions. So to confront these questions, the staff in the day center decided to voice the the local government election candidates into the center speak to an speak to the people, the residents, and tell them about voting and elections and the importance of being involved. And it just so happened that one local election candidate turned up to this meeting. But afterwards, the the staff member in the day center told me that when I rang the day that her went to vote, they came out and they said they voted for the one count safe because he had shown interest in these people and he'd taken time out of his day to educate them on what's going on. So I think you know, that small I think those kind of stunts say that people with intellectual disabilities disappearing, trusted in politics and you know, they do have an interest you know, personal stories, intellectual pupils, intellectual parents. In October we had a very normal support picture participation. That was what, a bit of a person with an intellectual impairment from the Czech Republic who is able to vote but also would like to run for office, is fighting to to get this right. Yeah, this interesting I'm kind of thinking maybe next year at some point it would be good, but it's too late for the European elections. But how could very be the kind of on on motivating disabled people to get into politics where disabled people with some political experience could share shared experiences? Therefore, I try to motivate you should be something just how do you think that technology could could help in enhancing the inclusivity of of voting? I think technology can really help. And I mean, we see on social media, you know, the introduction of including all the text in your shows. So people visual impairments can't fear pressure. They can click on the art text button and there is an image description. But, you know, that's a way that a very simple technological advance can, you know, to benefit the daily lives and activities of people and to access the expertise or not intellectual. This raised this in general. So when you apply technology to something like voting there, there can be huge opportunities to make it more accessible. And especially with I focus on in my thesis, accessible communications and and technology can have great benefits for that. And a lot of the parties I spoke to here in Ireland, they were worried about the costs of kind of implying someone to create Braille versions, to do sign language and on to implement easy to read or plain English versions of text, but end with technology. We can screen readers through PDFs, we can put subtitles on videos and it can be a place where we can house different manifestos next to materials in different translated and versions, plain English and easy trade, no different languages, even some. Yeah technology and can be a really great thing. It hasn't. It hasn't been utilized to its full potential yet, but hopefully in the future people will take advantage of it. There are some countries already allowed to vote via your mobile phone. They do? Yeah, they do. And it's yeah, that's certainly something that needs to be introduced on a wider scale and it really does feel like it just feels like people are waking up to these accessibility issues. They really help people again, like I said, not just people expertise, but and well, they're people, you know, if you have a like a temporary mobile impairment or some other obligation, they can't get out to vote. Voting with your phone is a very useful thing. So and having that more of a role in the future will be great. It will definitely take still a long time until voting by mobile phone. Digital voting will be possible in Germany. My home country is a very digital digitization skeptic company. Crazy modern technology, crazy. We already talked about possible legislative or policy changes which could help. Do you have a position on the question of quotas imposing quotas on political parties for disabled candidates? Would this help you think and I know this is very divisive question within, you know, any minority group, but we the disabled community people feel like can, you know, disabled people to need to the quota to exist to be able to get in the room to make changes. But I personally feel that quotas can help somewhat. And as I said, you know, there are 100 million people with disability in the European Union. And then you look at how many people, disabled people we are representing us in the European Parliament and it's under ten. I know it's seven, seven, seven. Yeah, thank you for them. You know, it should be, you know, ten times slimmer. And when we look at the breakdown of population in the EU group who had disabilities, so and I would like to think it would be nice if people of their own volition could vote to fill 70 seats for people with disabilities. But I'm unsure if in this current political climate or you know, the way the world thinks if that will happen. So and in that respect, I do think quotas could be is for because as I kind of touched on earlier, the benefits and advantages of representation of disabled people within politics is huge. You know, we can offer so much level experience and insight, but I'm it. There are sadly at the moment, many barriers that can prevent us from you know, giving our knowledge and having quota the conflict staff. Personally, I would see no issue with that. But I know what they would. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quotas. I'm kind of supportive of quotas when it comes to employment in politics. If there are not enough disabled people in the party, it will be a bit difficult for a party to fill the quota. So it's not enough people to say that people are daring themselves. Might be might be difficult. Yeah, it's a vicious circle. You know, people overseas. Yeah, they may think, you know, I'd never be elected. I could never be a politician, so I won't get involved in a party. But then parties kind of see their lack of involvement as open spaces don't care about politics. So it feeds into each other. And that way of thinking. But there we yeah, we really need to get around that. I think, you know and the Irish national elections are a year and a half away so hopefully more change can be introduced for then because and as I said, the European elections or next student in six months. So in any opportunity we had for my change is kind of very slow. It slowly slipping away from us. But elections are only every five years, so you know, it's never a safe bet. We shouldn't stop thinking about things we can do to make some changes would be good. Okay, you guys are also just have to think if there were 72 separate MEPs in the European Parliament, the debates about disability policy would be very different, I think. Yeah, I mean, I think the European Parliament, you know, I could speak all day on this, but then I think at the moment they are doing a lot of work, they are doing good work. I would see the Disability Intergroup within the Parliament and I think they're doing great things, but I'm on a bigger scale. I think there there could be untold benefits from that and so I really do think disability rights and issues and things like that, will they have not yet had their heyday. You know, we're still in the process of getting to the point where people can speak on large platform about these issues and make real positive change. And and yeah, we are seeing progress to get there. So I am excited to a future has served up speaking about the future. What aspirations or changes would you like to see if the broader landscape of the business, your rights, advocacy? Yeah, particularly the context. So that's the way the context we discussed as I write this, which changes would you like to see the broader landscape of disability rights advocacy, more representation? Listening to Disabled Voices is so important. The experience and knowledge we have built up over our lifetimes of living where this thing has until benefits, you know, a degree in politics. So and some politicians like the Green Party did for me, they listened to me. But my knowledge and what I could contribute on the subject of in the eye so and more politicians, more parties listened on a large scale to what people have to say on the areas that interest them or anything can get us to. The place I spoke about in the last last question, you know, they are representation. But I also keep telling politicians, you know, it's my job to talk to the best policy officer. So I keep that into providing that service providers for the ability service to stay off to represent us, but that they don't and they listen to me to listen to DPOs when it comes to disability matters and nobody is really aware of this the of this issue to go up now. Yes, there was much more to do, but yeah, sorry. no, I was just going to jump in there with and what I thought was for the duration I'm forgot to mention earlier was in the European Parliament when they hosted the in the Parliament for people with disabilities, the EPG and where hundreds of people expertise came into the Parliament and kind of spoke about different especially issues and you know change that can be made in relation to that. And that was just one day here. And so yeah one day you're is not enough to listen to people with disabilities. And I do think the EPD is a great initiative, but I don't really get people it's really thinking about pursuing a career in politics. You know, sitting in the parliament possibly some days and then weepy. But to get there, we need to listen to disabled people for more than just one day a year because, you know, it goes the same. But Irish kids affect us every day of our lives. And having one day a year to stand on a platform and talk about them is just not enough. Yeah, absolutely. I have to say, because conversation is straight. It's quite motivating. I thought of you. I would kind of like to what you talked about your political affiliation. I have one too. As policy officer, I'm a put aside for my work, of course, but in my political mind, I have I've not read. I'm quite right. I'm a Social Democrats. I'm very like Red Fox. Basically, this is a kind of old joke. This is the more productive. I'm kind of like finding other disabled Germans. The German Social Democratic Party has a chapter in Brussels, a kind of would like for others, though, to try to get it, put it that if I only had to type, maybe it's I mean, I've seen her. She's come up and in Ireland and I think in the Netherlands, we now parties that kind of represent the interests of farmers. And obviously throughout Europe we have the Green Party say, green issues and we have, you know, dozens of coalitions to increase female representation within politics. But we currently just haven't seen a well up until this point. We haven't seen the same kind of initiative for people with disabilities on them. I definitely think that's something that could easily take place in the European Parliament and kind of a similar group or within the European Union Party for disabled people. And it is something I would love to see in the future because yeah, again, I tell her, I'll tell you about this for then she would spend, he disperses. All right. She's kind of the Intersect. Every other issue there is, you know, health care, finance, the economy and housing education there, there. So let's talk about and there there really isn't a place where we can talk about it. So, yeah, I think as time progresses, I'm more and more just to feel kind of the world work, to be involved in politics. We can think about having some kind of forum where like minded people can come together and talk like this for them. Yeah, it's a great idea. Like a support group. Yeah. I would love to see something like this. Disabled, disabled politicians or potential politicians support this would be good. Okay. Yeah, a bit more informal than the disability to something important for. Yeah, I know more than one day years and that's the most important thing. This is a very good conversation. So many ideas. Yeah, we should, we should. So keep that in mind. And also if you, if any of our listeners are German social Democrats, a different Brussels, contact me. Let's see if we can work something out. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. We at the end of, of our podcast, is there anything you would like to add Of course and you don't have to discuss And I think I said everything I wanted to say. There. Yeah. Okay. Also to our listeners, thank you for joining us this episode of On Our Terms. I hope our discussion with life has provided valuable insights into the crucial topics of EU elections and accessible voting. If you have thoughts, questions or topics you'd like us to cover in future episodes, feel free to reach out. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast for more engaging conversations that bring the voices of the disability community to the forefront of European discourse. Until next time. This is really we signing off. Stay informed, stay empowered, and stay tuned for more discussions that matter.