By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Dec. 30: Various stakeholders have said that the Election Commission of Nepal (ECN) needs to develop inclusive and accessible voter education materials targeting persons with all types of disabilities to ensure the rights of voters in election.

Speaking at a programme organised to launch the research report on Wednesday, they said the multiple challenges the persons with disabilities face in the process of receiving voter education need to be addressed by concerned stakeholders.
All persons with disabilities should get voter education and create an environment where everyone can exercise their right to electoral participation, they said.
Nepal Disabled Women Association (NDWA) made public the research report on ‘Accessible Voter Education Materials for Person with Disabilities in Nepal’,

The specific objective of the research is to review the status of voter education materials in Nepal from the perspective of persons with disabilities and identify the types of voter education materials that can be accessed by persons with different types of disabilities.

This research has found that persons with disabilities are often excluded from receiving sufficient information, knowledge and education about elections and voting procedures. The study has found that, without access to adequate voter education, persons with disabilities lacked electoral and political awareness in the past elections.

Election Commissioner of ECN Dr. Janaki Kumari Tuladhar said that the actual number of persons with disabilities in Nepal may be much higher than mentioned in the research report. She stressed that accurate data of persons with disabilities need to be acquired.
ECN is working to develop specific or sufficient voter education materials targeting persons with different types of disabilities, she said.
The ECN is developing new software to keep records targeting persons with different types of disabilities, she added.

However, in previous elections, including the 2017 local, federal and provincial elections, the ECN did not develop specific or sufficient voter education materials targeting persons with different types of disabilities. However, they did use sign language in a few voter education videos, which focused only on voting procedures and not the entire electoral process, the research found out.

Additionally, different categories of persons with disabilities have different voter education needs. Therefore, adequate format and languages must be used in the voter education materials.
The research has found that the different challenges persons with disabilities face in the process of receiving voter education need to be addressed by concerned stakeholders. Voter education materials need to be developed with the needs of persons with disabilities in mind to ensure that they are widely accessible.

The Act Relating to Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2017 has classified 10 types of disabilities in Nepal, each with distinct needs regarding access to different kinds of voter education materials.
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, persons with disabilities constitute 1.94 per cent of the total population in Nepal.

The World Bank estimates that persons with disabilities represent approximately 15 per cent of the global population, suggesting the actual number of persons with disabilities in Nepal may be much higher.