Polls Pose More Inconvenience to Elderly and Disabled

Mr. Kang has not yet decided whether to participate in the election tomorrow. He might just give up. He has a disability which confines him to a wheelchair, and as the polling station in his district is on the second floor of a building, it will be difficult for him to reach it.

He said, "In the last election I was carried into the polling station on my son's back which was very embarrassing. I think I'd rather give up my vote than go through that again."

The 16th General Election will be another inconvenience to the elderly and disabled. Of the 858 polling stations in North Cholla Province, 128 - or 15 percent - are located on the second floor.

This year the number of polling stations have been reduced. In rural areas, residents will have to travel as far as 10km to reach the polls - a situation which inevitably results in some disabled citizens giving up their right to vote.

Oh Jung-rye, an independent candidate in the city of Chonju, mounted a campaign from his wheelchair on April 10 for first-floor polling booths.

In Pusan, of 939 polling stations, 318 are placed either in the basement or on second or third floors. Lee Bok-nam, the secretary-general of the Handicapped Association's union in Pusan, complains that, "Placing one of every three polling centers in places accessible only by stairways amounts to saying 'people who are disabled shouldn't vote'. We have argued continuously over the last ten years that polling stations be placed on the first floor, but nothing has changed."

Inchon is also a voting region unfavorable to the disabled as 19 percent of polling stations are located on the second or third floors of buildings. Of these buildings, only 12 are equipped with elevators or escalators, and none offer facilities specifically for the disabled, such as wheelchair lifts.

An official in the Election Administration Committee said, "We will place guides in the polling stations to assist disabled and elderly voters. However, it is true that insufficient attention has been paid to the needs of the disabled, due to budget constrictions and the scarce availability of suitable first-floor locations."

by Seo Hyung-sik