SECURING ELECTION RIGHTS FOR THE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES: INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

The article deals with the issues of securing election rights for the people with disabilities. The author analyses various normative legal acts, regulating election rights for this category of citizens on the international and domestic level. Special attention is given to the participation of the people with disabilities in the 2019 elections to the European Parliament. The procedure of monitoring different categories of citizens taking part in 2019 elections to the European Parliament has revealed that approximately 800 000 of people failed to exercise their right to vote due to physical or mental disability. A considerable number of people failed to exercise their right due to inadequate organization (technical barriers) and disregard of their special needs caused by disability. There are also obstacles to independent voting, caused by the lack of information about various types of disability, bureaucratic nature of relative adaptation of the election procedure. The political rights of people with disabilities at exercising their election rights can be categorized in the following way: securing equality at active participation (access to polling stations, opportunity to exercise the right to secret vote, availability of clear information about elections and nominated candidates); equality at exercising passive rights (access to Election commissions, possibility to submit documents to be nominated as a candidate); equal opportunities to take part in the work of political organizations, governmental support for the associations of the people with disabilities. The author leads us to the conclusion that international and European laws, guaranteeing the election rights of the people with disabilities are being reformed in order to resolve the current problems which prevent these citizens to take part in the election procedure.