Visually-impaired persons undergo training on use of tactile jackets in December polls

Some visually-impaired electorates in the Lower Manya Krobo Municipality of the Eastern Region have undergone training on the proper use of the Tactile Jacket, ahead of the December 7 polls.

The tactile jacket is voting equipment provided by the Electoral Commission (EC) to assist the visually impaired in casting their ballot.

According to Mr Jonathan Okine, the Municipal Director of the Electoral Commission (EC), the training held at the Municipal Assembly. was to educate, particularly, first-time voters on the use of tactile jackets to enable them to vote independently and appropriately on December 7 without any difficulties.

The EC organised the day’s training, which also sensitised the participants on the voting process.

“The main purpose for this engagement is for us to train the visually-impaired on the use of the tactile jacket to make them competent enough so that they’d vote independently,” said the EC Director.

With the jacket, the visually impaired electorates would be able to identify their preferred choice of candidates and vote for them accordingly.

Mr. Okine expressed confidence in the success of the training, hopeful that participants at the end of the session should feel encouraged to go to the polling centers on the day to secretly and independently cast their vote on the 7th of December, 2024.

He further took them through the various electoral laws such as attempting to vote before commencement or after closure of polls, voting by illegitimate persons, voting in the name of another person, putting foreign materials into the ballot box, obstructing a polling officer from doing their work, forcing someone to vote in a particular way, etc.

Mr. Okine urged them to refrain from violating the rules to avoid falling foul of the law.

Following a demonstration on the use of the tactile jacket, a practical dummy voting session on the use of the material was also held with each participant supervised by EC officials to independently go through the process.

Eunice Korlekuor, Eastern Regional Chairperson of the Ghana Blind Union (GBU) speaking to the press after the event said about 150 persons form the registered membership of the GBU in the municipality, out of which 25 turned up for the training.

She however assured that the leadership of the Union would pass the knowledge gained from the training to other members.

According to her, the introduction of and training on the use of the tactile jacket in Ghana’s electoral process comes as a huge relief as aids to some visually-impaired persons abused the trust imposed in them by deliberately voting for candidates other than their choices.

“When our aids help us into the screen, they hold our hands to vote for candidates of their choice and not ours,” said Miss Korlekuor, adding that the situation compelled the GBU to appeal for the introduction of the tactile jackets into the voting process to enable them vote independently.

She also complained about lack of accessibility to some of the polling stations, especially the physically-challenged persons and appealed that such issues be addressed ahead of the polls.

Ghana goes to the polls on December 07, 2024 to elect its next President and 275 parliamentarians.