The October 26, 2026 Ottawa municipal election denied my daughter and me an independent and secret vote. I have voted as a blind person for 40 years, and this was the most inaccessible voting experience I have had to date.
I live in the west end of Ottawa and my voting place in Kanata South had no tactile voting options and no accessible voting machine. I do not see well enough to use magnification, and I do not read braille. I like a very significant number of people who lose their vision as adults never learn braille, because there are other solutions and accommodations that work for them. Braille is important for kids who need literacy but is not the solution for the vast majority of adults who lose their sight. I am not the exception. From a blindness perspective, an independent vote requires an option that works without sight, and my voting place offered none that worked for me. What I needed was the tactile option other elections already provide: a ballot template that fits over the ballot and lets a blind voter mark it independently. That baseline option was missing.
When my issue was escalated, staff called the elections office and put me on the phone with a coordinator there, who told me I should have voted at advance polling, where staff had installed the accessible voting machine [the “talking machine”]. That reverses responsibility. The machine was never the issue. The missing tactile template was.
However; making the accessible option available only at advance polls, then blaming the voter for not using them, is a planning failure, not a voter failure. A voter should not have to travel to a different voting opportunity to get the accessible option. Forcing a voter to go to advance polls also creates a single failure point: if that one opportunity fails, or the voter cannot make it, there is no backup. That is not equitable. We could not make advance polling, and I have never had to go to advance polling to vote independently in the past.
My daughter, who is blind, a voter, and a braille reader, asked for the braille version. It did not work either. Someone had packaged or stored the braille so badly that the dots had gone flat to the point of being unreadable. Braille dots have to be raised, not flat. Proper storage of braille is a well-known need, and this is not the 1st time it has failed at the municipal level. The little that could still be felt was in contracted braille, which would have suited her. Contracted braille uses shorthand contractions for whole words and groups of letters. It is the faster, more complex form, used by experienced advanced braille readers. Uncontracted braille spells every word out in full, and is what newer readers learn first. However; flat braille is unreadable in any grade, and contracted braille alone does not serve every braille reader. She was given the braille list of candidates, but a list is not a vote. Without a template to hold the ballot in place and line up the marking spots, she had nothing to slide her vote into and no way to mark and cast her vote on her own. Knowing who is running does not let you vote. When the issue was raised and escalated, she got the same answer I did: she should have gone to advance polling, and given no real secret solution.
This need was foreseeable, and planning for it properly was possible. My voting place serves 2 seniors’ homes, and at least 5 blind people live in the area. My family has lived here for 25 years, and that need has been there the whole time. Actual blind voters know what they need to vote.
What options exist for blind voters
Many other cities are doing things right. These options were already in use at elections before COVID. The options are not exotic technology. They are templates, mailed packages, and marking devices, planned in advance.
- Tactile templates, lists, and guides. A template fits over the ballot and lets a blind voter mark it independently. Other cities like Toronto provide braille ballot overlays and a braille How to Vote Guide at all voting places. Other cities like Edmonton provide tactile voter templates at all voting stations. Other cities like Winnipeg provide braille templates at all voting stations in its 2026 municipal election.
- A braille ballot package by mail. Other cities like Toronto offer a braille ballot package by mail. From September 1, 2026, a Toronto voter could request one by mail, online, or by phone, delivered by Canada Post. The package contains a declaration and instruction form in braille to sign and return, a braille overlay template for marking the official ballot, the official ballot itself, an official candidate list in braille and print that matches the ballot and the template, a ballot secrecy envelope with a braille embossed label, and a yellow return envelope with prepaid postage and a braille embossed label.
- Ballot-marking devices. Ottawa had these, but only at advanced polls and Voter Assist Terminals, which let voters with disabilities mark a ballot privately and on their own, with a touch screen, an audio function, a braille keypad, a sip and puff tube, a rocker paddle, and zoom features for font size and colour contrast.
Provincial and federal elections do this already. Federally, a ballot template is provided on request to a voter with a visual impairment. Manitoba provides braille ballot templates and a braille list of candidates at all polling places. Ontario provides ballot templates with braille numbering and cut outs. New Brunswick provides a braille controller with an audio session: the voter listens to the candidate names through a headset, navigates with arrow keys, and confirms a choice that is printed into a secrecy sleeve – and on and on with other examples.
So, every one of these options lets a voter with vision loss mark a ballot without sighted assistance and without telling anyone their choice. My voting place offered none of them.
What should change
- Provide a tactile ballot template at every voting place on election day, as other elections already do. Stop treating the accessible voting machine at advance polls as the answer; the template is the baseline.
- Produce, package, and store braille ballots so the dots stay raised, and offer them in both uncontracted and contracted braille.
- Consult people who are blind directly when planning accessible voting, not only organisations.
- Train staff so no voter is ever told their inability to vote independently is their own fault.
A noteable point: every item above is fixable before the next election. It requires planning that includes blind voters from the start.
What I have done so far
I sent a formal complaint to the City of Ottawa elections office on October 26, and I have asked for a written response explaining what went wrong at my voting place and what will change before the next election. I am still waiting for that response. I sent a copy to CBC Ottawa, and I emailed my new councillor, Erin Coffin, who won Kanata South. I voted for her, and I was happy to see her get in. I do not mind telling you that, because unlike other elections, I did not get to vote secretly or independently.
An independent and secret vote is not a favour. A vote I cannot cast without telling someone my choice is not a secret vote.
I expect the next election to give my daughter and me the independent and secret vote every other voter gets. If you ran into this in Ottawa or elsewhere, I want to hear about it.