Jonathan Elebjörk Wahlström is a board member of the International Federation of Hard of Hearing Young People and the newly elected Co-Chair of EDF’s Youth Committee. His testimonial reflects on the multifaceted nature of accessibility in political participation and explains the Swedish context for the European elections.
As in every election, it is very important for everyone to use their voice and their vote. The power over what is going to happen for the next five years in the European Parliament is in our hands, and we know that the right to vote is not guaranteed for everyone in every place in our world.
We need to make sure that we use the chance to have our say in the European elections: to go and vote to make sure that we see a society that goes in a better direction, a direction that better suits our ideals.
The question of why everyone should be able to vote is a question about what kind of society we want to be. I’m a firm believer in democracy and the power that comes out of allowing everyone to have their say.
Of course, democracy is so much more than just the right to vote, but the right to vote is part of the backbone of democracy, and it’s also one of the clearest ways to make sure that you are involved and in power of your own society and own life.
Voting won’t always change everything, but it’s important that you have the possibility to say what you want. Your voice is one voice of many others, but it’s still important to make use of it.
Barriers to voting as a Hard of Hearing person
When we in the European Disability Forum but also within the disability movement speak about the right to vote and the possibility to vote, we often speak about physical obstacles; we speak about barriers, we speak about inaccessible voting processes.
While that is often the case, the barrier for Hard of Hearing persons is about everything else. Do I have access to accessible media? Where can I see what’s going on? Where can I form my own opinion? Does the video that my representative puts up on social media have subtitles?
It’s about access to information rather than access to the voting booth itself.
We know for sure that the voting turnout in the elections to the European Parliament is often lower than the national voting turnout, and I think that’s partly insecurity and a bit of not people not knowing exactly what the role of the European Union in their everyday life is.
An instance where this becomes even clearer is in the Swedish context, where I have my background. Sweden has the second-highest voter turnout in parliamentary elections in Europe, outside of the member states where voting is compulsory. However, its ranking for turnout in the last EU elections drops to sixth.
It’s clear to me that the knowledge about how politics and the European Union affects us in our everyday lives is comparatively low. That makes the role of the media, politicians, and campaigns even more important for people to be able to make their choice when it comes to election day.
Inaccessibility can be both that the information is logistically inaccessible for us as persons with disabilities, but also that the information does not explain why these things should matter to you.
It’s an important aspect to consider when we speak about accessibility in election processes all over Europe.
Political participation in Sweden
One explanation for Sweden’s generally high voting turnout is that we have a system that is very trusting in its institutions. You go to vote because that is what expected from you on a broader perspective, and because you trust the institutions. This is the way to make a change or make sure you steer things in the direction that you want.
But I also know if we speak from a Swedish perspective, there are some things that might be worrisome when it comes to accessibility in voting stations. One of them is that we do not have a clear picture of exactly how accessible the voting stations are, since there’s not one system for how voting stations are set up. It is done by the 291 municipalities.
It becomes the same problem that we use to speak about the European elections: it’s not one election, it’s 27 across the 27 EU Member States. In Sweden, it becomes 291 elections in essence.
It means that the accessibility of polling stations is good in theory, but we know that it requires something of the voter. It requires you to check the physical accessibility because it’s highly possible that, on the day of voting, you will discover that your local polling station is located in a place or a way that does not allow you to access it easily.
So even though it’s put in place on a national level, if it’s not standardised across all these municipalities, there’s no guarantee that it can be accessible.
Why it’s important for everyone to vote
People should really take the chance to vote because it’s the possibility for us to have a say.
I think that people might feel that their vote doesn’t matter since it’s such large numbers that we are speaking about around elections. But you must not forget that those numbers are, when it comes to the end of it, still single persons going to their election, putting in votes and aligning with what they want.
It’s the one most important way that we can affect politics because it’s our way of choosing who we want to represent us. In my opinion, if we don’t make that choice and try to achieve the changes that we want, then we do not have the right to feel that we don’t have the right representatives.
Creating accessible information is also creating ways to reach out to voters
If everyone doesn’t do what they can to raise accessibility, it’s possible that only certain parties or representatives will have accessible information. Then, for good reason, these candidates will have a better stand when it comes to getting votes from people with disabilities. In my opinion, that’s something that the parties need to understand.
If they aren’t allowing everyone to access what they want to say, why are they running their campaigns?
Democracy relies on equal access to voting
When it comes to the European context, it’s still important to raise the issue on access to voting rights to begin with, and the limitations that are still in place for many people. We need to remember that until everyone has the access to vote, we are not a real democracy; democracy relies on us being equal when it comes to the possibility to have our say.
Secondly, I think that it’s important for politicians, for parties and for every other actor within the political context to realise their own role.
They have a responsibility to take actions to make sure that information is accessible, but also to make sure that the physical voting spaces are accessible. If we do not create an environment that is accessible for everyone to make their own informed decision and to cast their votes, how can we claim that it’s the people’s choice?
Accessibility benefits everyone
In some European member states, the possibility to cast your vote outside of the voting day is quite limited. The possibility to get some aid to cast your vote, through postal vote, for example, gives everyone a chance to vote. That’s not even always related to disability – it benefits everyone, whether you are a person who needs to work on the election day or cannot attend in person for any other reason.
Accessibility is about making it as simple as possible for everyone to be able to vote.