Sir, – Last summer, when there was less election looming, I applied for a postal vote to the appropriate authority, Dublin City Council, and a couple of months later I was, very politely and courteously, turned down on the grounds that, under the current legislation, I do not qualify.
The official in question went on to say that the council had been requesting reviews and changes in the legislation for a number of years now but had been ignored by several governments.
I am registered blind with some usable vision. This means that, with the kind offices of my guide dog, I can get to the polling station (that is the disqualifying factor!) but after that it becomes near impossible.
In the last two elections, I had to solicit the help of a returning officer, again kindly and willingly given, but for me to create order from 15 to 20 names, most of which I have never heard before, and assimilate whether they are from a party (and if so which party) or non-party, to number them in order of preference from memory, and then to write in numbers, badly, in invisible pencil, is the stuff of nightmares, and I know that the result was incomplete.
Under the benign provisions of the legislation, this must all be done with not one but two returning officers, thus keeping them for a considerable time from their real duties in a crowded polling station.
My natural instinct is to rush through it all, increasing my errors, but the most important negatives for me are the complete surrender of my secret ballot and my lack of privacy.
If I had the postal vote, I could use all the forces of my wondrous assistive technology to magnify, sort and, above all, vote seriously and competently, which is all I want. – Yours, etc,
HONOR Ó BROLCHÁIN,
Donnybrook,
Dublin 4.