Minister wants voting assistance for people with intellectual disabilities sooner

People with intellectual disabilities, people with poor reading and writing skills and people with dementia should be able to get help with voting in every municipality. This is stated in a bill prepared by outgoing Minister of the Interior Hugo de Jonge, he reported on Friday. It was previously an experiment in which around 15 municipalities were to participate, but this experiment will no longer take place.

"In the original plans, help in the voting booth would only be available in 2029 for everyone who requests it," De Jonge said in a statement. "That's inexplicable." According to the minister's plan, more extensive voting assistance will be possible from 2026.

Last year, the Council of State saw several weaknesses in the bill for the experiment. Voters with an intellectual disability must "unequivocally" tell the polling officer who their vote is going to. But what is unequivocal? The bill does not clearly state what this means, the Council of State found. According to the administrative advisor, the bill was also too vague about the design of polling stations: other people should not be able to hear what the voter says to the polling station employee.

It is not yet clear whether Minister De Jonge has taken these criticisms into account. The ministry describes the advice of the Council of State as "predominantly positive".