Wheelchair accessible with assistance

[vass]

I got a letter from the Victorian Electoral Council about the state election this Saturday. It listed all the polling places in my region, marked FWA if they're fully wheelchair accessible, or AWA if they're wheelchair accessible with assistance. I don't know what 'wheelchair accessible with assistance' means, but I assume it's either "they bring your ballot to you because there's no booth available for your height" or worse, "it's just one step." Either way, there are no fully wheelchair accessible polling places in my district. Not one.

Comments

[lauredhel]

I hear you - the situation was similar for me here in WA last time round. My local "AWA" place meant "a step on each side, the entry with a barely usable rickety portable ramp, the exit with an unusable and unsafe ramp emptying out at the top of a steep slope, so that you'll have to somehow instead turn around inside the small space and go out the in door, with several people assisting by disrupting the entire queue just so that you can exit. Also, the seated voting space is located away from the other booths and undemarcated, so that you'll have to search for it, and then cast your vote apart from the rest of your family and community. Also, a poll worker will touch you solicitously without warning or consent, and then offer to take your ballot paper and put it in the box for you, even though you clearly have mobility and full use of your arms and have not requested assistance."

Good luck...

[vass]

That really sucks. It doesn't affect me personally, as I'm not mobility disabled, but there are certainly people in my district that it does affect. And really, NO fully accessible polling places? In a country with compulsory voting? What the fuck?

[lauredhel]

Apparently the crips can always postal vote, or something. Unlike the regular people.

Which is not much consolation if (a) you want to vote like a regular person, or (b) you think your local polling place might be accessible, and find out on the day that it's not.

[trouble]

The compulsory voting thing really gets my goat. Not the voting itself, but that in a place with compulsory voting there's no requirement that all polling places be accessible to people with disabilities, and that all polling attendants aren't required to be fully trained on it.

[deird1]

*nods*

They should make it standard.

[ironed_orchid]

Yep.

And given that the polling places tend to be school assembly rooms, town halls, and some times churches, why aren't these places already accessible, you know, for their regular everyday use.

[jesse_the_k]

particularly this!

[lauredhel]

A gazillion times this. I'm just boggled that State schools still aren't accessible - classrooms, libraries, front offices, the lot. A huge national works project was just underway to build new school buildings, but there has been nothing whatsoever, not even murmurs, about doing simple small adaptations to the enormous stock of existing "just one step" buildings.

Teachers, parents, grandparents, guardians, carers, staff, as well as students with disabilities - all are excluded.

How about we take a bite out of the government grant budget for giant state of the art performing arts and sports centres at unspeakably wealthy private schools, and start making basic local education and voting - BOTH of which are COMFUCKINGPULSORY - actually accessible?

[qem_chibati]

I apologise for coming across as off-topic just this touches on one of my hot-button issues, the NWP for new school buildings.

It's sometimes a matter of someone putting in the paperwork to request it though. My understanding is that there is legislation that means that public schools are required to be accessible if there is a person who is local and wishes to attend that school, although they can minimise the accessibility e.g. re-arranging class schedules to be on the ground floor, policies that work for one person, not many; being awa rather than fully accessible.

I'm boggled that more schools aren't accessible already, and I don't understand why new buildings are being built inappropriately, but I do know that there are schools working to become accessible for potential students that have requested such, so that they will be able to enroll there. I don't know how much time and effort said potential students/teachers have gone through to make it possible*, but primary motivation seemed to be legislative. (*Although there have been many fuck ups with building the lift at one.)


I actually think that the giant national works project money would of been better spent, if there was more individual assessment of schools rather than a grand gesture. I think there were a lot of schools that needed the buildings but there were other schools that would of been better off upgrading/increasing accessibility rather than having a new building that did not resolve any existing issues (such as the old hall being too small / lack of accessibility).

There were extremely wealthy private schools which did not deserve the money who got grants and public schools that literally had a new hall forced upon them against the wishes of the school and the community. (One school had both campaigning to save the trees in the proposed area, stating that their existing hall was serviceable. I guarantee they would of preferred to have made their existing buildings more accessible.)


Unfortunately most public schools got very little say as to how the money was spent as it involved a great deal of time and effort (and needless bureaucracy) to have significant say, on building specific buildings, and not every school has an ex-builder for a principal that can deal with it.

/slightly bitter.

[lauredhel]

And I'm a parent, not a student, so the requirement to kludge faux-accessibility for students doesn't appear to apply. I've spoken to the school, the P&C, and the education department, and I've been wheeling around the school for a long time now making it clear to teachers and other staff alike that I _can't wheel into any classrooms_ (they're all ground floor, but all "just one step". Even if this did apply to parents, that doesn't help voters who have no other connection with a school.

Individual applications and kludges are not a solution to systemic inaccessibility, and they just add more to our "Second Shift".

I haven't heard a single politician getting up and speaking loudly about this. PWD are 20% of the population, and still we're shut out from the very basics of citizenship.

[qem_chibati]

I just wanted to clarify something with what I said last night; when I said that I wish there was more individual assessment, I didn’t really mean, the money should have been determined by the schools to spend entirely at their own prerogative.

I meant that I wish instead of saying “every school should have a new hall”, that it was “every school should have a hall that meets these basic requirements”, including accessibility, because you are right. The school hall is frequently used by the wider community (for voting, fates, events) and should be accessible to such. I am sorry that you are having trouble getting your local school to take that into account and I wish that politicians would.

But as it stands some of the new halls built as part of this project, in Sydney at least, are ultimately less functional and less accessible than the previous existing ones.

I’m resigned to the fact that it’s not feasible to make every building accessible, but I think that making every school hall modern and accessible was not only more desirable but much more feasible than what actually happened.

I also think that there are no excuses for modern school buildings not having accessibility in mind when they are built (not just for the wider population and because it is the right thing to do, but if they are asked for an enrolling student, they are legally obliged to do so, and it is more expensive and disruptive to build and then renovate, then to build it right to begin with).

I agree very much with the sentiments of Individual applications and kludges are not a solution to systemic inaccessibility, and they just add more to our "Second Shift"., although I also think it is at least a start to fixing the issue. I think that fundamentally adhoc changes are problematic because even when they are implemented (sometimes unevenly), it tends to build resentment (why can’t they go to a special needs school?), which is not a healthy environment for the student in question.

[lilacsigil]

Yeah. I postal vote because I don't know for sure that I'm going to be able to stand in a queue for 10 minutes on any given day and there's usually no chairs, or just tiny little primary-school sized ones.

What makes me even more cranky is that most of the polling places (at least in my area) are either the council building, senior citizens centre or a school. Council buildings and schools should be the *most* accessible buildings in the community, not the least. Our senior citizens centre has just one step. Just one.

[roserodent]

I don't like to postal vote, there is enough stuff lost in the mail and enough corruption in politics without adding ballots that do not have a complete chain from polling station to count. Our polling station is actually marked as fully accessible, but the ramp cannot possibly meet any kind of criteria on safety... in fact I know it doesn't as the gradient doesn't meet current British requirements. But worse than that is the 2-inch high curb cuts where they have sunk a new drain right in the middle, so it's accessible if you are able to teleport your wheelchair to the front door.

I've asked them to change it to be marked as assistance required, but then also challenged that if they say assistance is required assistance should be required to be *provided by them*.

[lilacsigil]

I don't like to postal vote,

I'm not advocating it as a substitute for voting in person - it's just the way I personally manage the requirements. In most places we also have early voting stations, but I live in a very rural area where there isn't one.

And what is it with some people who see accessibility modifications and think "wasted space, I'll put something there!" And yes, assistance should be required to be provided. It is required here, where voting is compulsory, but that also leads to the problem of lack of accommodations for disabled people who want to vote in private but can't without assistance - and all the "assistance" is people.