AODA Alliance
ACCESSIBILITY FOR ONTARIANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT ALLIANCE
NEWS RELEASE – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Will Voters with Vision Disabilities Be Able to Reliably and Independently Mark Their Ballot and Verify Their Choice in this Election? AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky Has a Case Against Elections Ontario at the Human Rights Tribunal that Won’t be Heard Until the Fall!
February 10, 2025 Toronto: Ontario Voters who cannot read and mark a print ballot due to vision loss are not assured in an Ontario election that they can consistently and reliably independently mark their ballot in private and verify their choice. This is so according to a major disability discrimination complaint which blind lawyer, disability rights law professor and disability advocate David Lepofsky filed against Elections Ontario almost six years ago at the backlogged Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.
After years of unsuccessful disability advocacy for truly accessible voting for voters with disabilities, David Lepofsky v. Elections Ontario was triggered by an incident in the 2018 Ontario election when Lepofsky tried to vote using Elections Ontario’s so-called “accessible voting machine” only to have his marked ballot ended up falling to the floor. A poll worker saw who he voted for, severely violating the secret ballot. Elections Ontario did not dispute those facts and apologized to Lepofsky. However it has not taken sufficient action to ensure accessible voting since then.
“The secret ballot is absolutely essential to a democratic election,” said David Lepofsky, who chairs the non-partisan AODA Alliance that has campaigned for over 15 years for barrier-free voting for voters with disabilities. He is also a visiting professor of disability rights at the law schools at Western and the University of Ottawa. “I’ve called on Elections Ontario to take important new steps to improve the chances for accessible voting in this election, and they have had years to prepare to properly fulfil the guarantees to voters with vision disabilities by the Charter of Rights and the Ontario Human Rights Code.”
Lepofsky v. Elections Ontario, which is now scheduled for a hearing in September, focuses only on barriers to accessible voting facing voters with vision disabilities, such as Lepofsky. However, Lepofsky and the AODA Alliance have campaigned more broadly for years to remove barriers facing voters with any disabilities.
” I’ve slammed into two ugly roadblocks in this case so far,” said Lepofsky. “Elections Ontario has failed to take the steps needed for voters like me, and has tried to throw procedural barriers in my way that would make this interminable human rights process take even longer. Second, the Human Rights Tribunal process has become dysfunctional, with inexcusable delays.”
Obvious steps that Elections Ontario should be taking in this election include, for example:
- Establishing and widely-publicizing a Voters with Disabilities Hotline, for voters to report disability barriers and Elections Ontario can deploy a rapid response team to fix problems.
- Systematically auditing the ability of relevant Elections Ontario staff at the front lines who will work with the accessible voting terminal to ensure in advance that they will effectively assist voters with its use.
- Establishing a system, including a directive to all Returning Officers and other related front-line officials, requiring that if a problem with accessible voting for voters with vision loss occurs (such as what happened with David Lepofsky in 2018), Elections Ontario will swiftly notify all such officials so that they can take extra care to prevent this problem from recurring.
“It is ridiculous that I have to mount a legal battle for such an obvious and important accommodation, and that Elections Ontario fails to recognize that it needs to do much better,” said Lepofsky.” This is eerily like the absurdity of the multi-year legal battle I fought and won against the Toronto Transit Commission to force them to consistently audibly announce all subway, bus and streetcar stops to accommodate blind passengers like me.”
People with disabilities are trying to raise important disability issues during this election campaign, especially since the start of 2025 has come and gone, and Ontario did not become accessible to 2.9 million Ontarians with disabilities, as Ontario’s Disabilities Act legislatively promised,” said Lepofsky. It would be a cruel irony if barriers to accessible voting reduce the political punch of the large disability vote in this election!”
Contact: AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky, aodafeedback@gmail.com
Twitter: @davidlepofsky or @aodaalliance
For background, check out:
The June 1, 2018 AODA Alliance Update which describes the violation of AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofskys right to independently mark his ballot in secret and verify his choice in the 2018 Ontario election.
The AODA Alliance website’s elections accessibility page which spells out the coalitions efforts for over 15 years to ensure accessible voting in Ontario for voters with disabilities.