Hello all,
If you're fed up with threads about access to voting, please stop reading
and delete, as this will be quite a long email. However, if you want to know
more, and wish to help me to improve our lot in this area, read on. I have
cross-posted this to four lists on which much discussion has taken place
over the past 24 hours, so if you receive multiple copies of this message,
please patiently delete the copies you don't need, and accept my apologies
for the duplication.
On 26 May, I attended a round table discussion on this subject on behalf of
BCAB. It should lead to relevant organisations working together to improve
access to the democratic process for all of us. Earlier this week, Webroots
Democracy, aka the Institute for Digital Democracy, who ran the event,
produced a report of the findings of the discussion, and a seven-point
action plan for organisations charged with making democracy accessible to
and inclusive of diverse groups (referred to in some of our on-list
discussions as 'the powers that be'.
You can read the report of the round table event at:
https://webrootsdemocracy.org/inclusive-voting/
If, however, you would prefer to read the report in MS word rather than the
'text only pdf' they have provided (don't worry - I've already set them
straight on that one), please write to me off-list, and I'll send you a
copy. Please also write if you'd rather hear an automatically-produced synth
voice reading of the report than the reading provided on the site. I
generated this from the PDF version, and personally prefer the result.
I intend to share the best points from the lively discussions on the voting
experience of list members with Webroots Democracy, so that future work will
take our experiences into account. If you have made suggestions for
improvements to the system on any of these lists but don't want them passed
on, please write to me off list at clive.lever1955@xxxxxxxxx
I must assure you that I will share the ideas without naming list
contributors. I am keen that work to improve our access to voting continues
unabated, and doesn't get put on hold to be revived as a knee-jerk reaction
to the next imminent election (whenever that may be). I should also assure
you that this discussion was already planned before the snap general
election was called.
Best,
Clive