The monitoring teams of the My Right Campaign – National Campaign for the Realization of Political Rights for Persons with Disabilities concluded the electoral monitoring day, where the campaign had distributed its 234 observers to 41 mobile and fixed teams, support groups and operations rooms, in the districts of Beirut, Mount Lebanon, North, Akkar, South, Nabatieh, Bekaa and Baalbek-Hermel governorates. The monitoring operation aimed to verify the eligibility of electoral centers for voters with disabilities to vote independently and with dignity.

In the current cycle, the campaign’s demands were limited to using the ground floor rooms in polling stations as polling stations, operating elevators where they exist, and creating polling stations in the courtyards of polling stations that do not have ground floor rooms to convert them into polling stations.

Campaign teams monitored 138 out of 177 polling stations (78%) whose ground floors included rooms suitable for polling stations. The initial monitoring result detected 465 violations in the selected centers, distributed among 26 violations in Beirut, 142 in Ba’a, 95 in Mount Lebanon, 101 in the north, and 101 in the south.

In details, and 9% there is no parking for cars for people with disabilities near the electoral center, in 10% the main entrance to the electoral center is not suitable, too narrow and there are obstacles to entry, in 4% there is an alternative entrance that is easy to enter but is not used, and in 7% there are obstacles to accessing the elevator or stairs. 1% of the centers suffered from a power outage on the elevator, 1% the elevator was locked, 1% the elevator was broken, 9% of the centers removed directional signs for people with disabilities, 10% did not move the ballot pens to the ground floor, while the pens were moved to the ground floor in 3% of them. In a number of centers, it was observed that the tent in the courtyard of the center was not used as a polling station, and in another, it was found that disabled voters did not move their pen to the courtyard despite the introduction of another pen in the courtyard.

In dealing with disabled voters, 3% of the violations were related to security forces not facilitating the passage of disabled people’s cars, 5% did not allow disabled cars to park near the polling station, and 1% did not allow a disabled person to bring an assistant. At the polling station, it was observed that 1% were forced to finish the list outside the polling station, the head of the polling station dropped the list for 4% of disabled voters, the head of the polling station treated 1% of them with compassion, the head of the polling station pressured 1% of disabled voters to speed up the voting process, and there was chaos and shoving in 7% of the polling stations. The other 22% of the violations were distributed among other headings. It was noted that disabled voters continued to be carried on stairs where there are no facilities or equipment, and some of them had to be carried to the upper floors in dangerous and degrading situations, and some disabled voters were treated with sarcasm by the representatives of some lists.

In the next two weeks, the My Right campaign will organize a press conference to launch the monitoring report, as well as the general report on the development of political rights for people with disabilities in Lebanon.