633 Results
Quotes
Quotes based on international documents, law, and treaties- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.4. with regard to accessibility of polling stations, information and procedures, including electoral campaigns: (...) 7.4.2. ensure the provision of information about electoral processes, voting procedures and political programmes in accessible formats, including in easy-to-read and easy-to-understand versions, with sign interpretation when required, subtitles for videos and Braille versions; 7.4.3. provide ballot papers in accessible formats and tactile voting devices for blind people in at least one polling station in every election district."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (...) 7.4. with regard to accessibility of polling stations, information and procedures, including electoral campaigns: (...) 7.4.4. consider linking State funding of political parties to their compliance with accessibility requirements for persons with disabilities."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (…) 7.6. with regard to active participation in elections: (…) 7.6.3. provide candidates with disabilities with additional financial support to cover the extra costs they might incur for carrying out electoral campaigns."
- "In the light of these considerations, the Assembly calls on Council of Europe member and observer States, and States whose parliaments enjoy observer or partner for democracy status with the Parliamentary Assembly to: (…) 7.6. with regard to active participation in elections: (…) 7.6.2. consider the establishment of quotas for the participation of persons with disabilities in parliamentary and local elections, with a view to increasing participation and representation."
- "The Assembly encourages political parties to demonstrate their commitment to making political life more inclusive and representative by producing and disseminating accessible political manifestos and ensuring accessibility of their meeting premises and events. Political parties should promote participation and offer persons with disabilities electable positions on electoral lists."
- "DPOs [disabled persons organizations] should be closely consulted and actively involved in the development and implementation of legislation and policies."
- "It is not acceptable to remove and/or limit the right to vote or to stand as a candidate on the basis of any type of disability, including intellectual or psychosocial disabilities."
- "Supported decision-making means that a person can receive the necessary assistance to adopt certain decisions in life, including when exercising the right to vote. Such mechanisms should replace the substituted decision-making ones, providing persons with disabilities with the necessary support to exercise their electoral and political rights without undue limitation."
- "Key electoral information should be made available in multiple, accessible formats, which may include Braille, large print, audio, easy-to-understand versions and sign language. This includes information about how to participate in an election, how to lodge complaints and appeals, results and updates from the election administration."
- "The CRPD Committee has consequently been very clear that the treaty does not permit the removal of legal capacity based on mental or intellectual disability. It is clear that neither general nor individualized court decisions are acceptable bases for the removal of suffrage rights. In 2011, in Bujdosó and five others v. Hungary, the Committee heard a case in which persons with intellectual disability were placed under partial or full guardianship and their names automatically removed from the electoral register. The Committee found that the “exclusion of the right to vote on the basis of a perceived, or actual psychosocial or intellectual disability, including a restriction pursuant to an individualized assessment, constitutes discrimination on the basis of disability”."
- "As long as goods, products and services are open or provided to the public, they must be accessible to all, regardless of whether they are owned and/or provided by a public authority or a private enterprise. Persons with disabilities should have equal access to all goods, products and services that are open or provided to the public in a manner that ensures their effective and equal access and respects their dignity."
- "Accessibility is related to groups, whereas reasonable accommodation is related to individuals. This means that the duty to provide accessibility is an ex ante duty. States parties therefore have the duty to provide accessibility before receiving an individual request to enter or use a place or service. (...) The obligation to implement accessibility is unconditional, i.e. the entity obliged to provide accessibility may not excuse the omission to do so by referring to the burden of providing access for persons with disabilities. "
- "The duty to provide reasonable accommodation is an ex nunc duty, which means that it is enforceable from the moment an individual with an impairment needs it in a given situation, for example, workplace or school, in order to enjoy her or his rights on an equal basis in a particular context. Here, accessibility standards can be an indicator, but may not be taken as prescriptive. Reasonable accommodation can be used as a means of ensuring accessibility for an individual with a disability in a particular situation. Reasonable accommodation seeks to achieve individual justice in the sense that non-discrimination or equality is assured, taking the dignity, autonomy and choices of the individual into account."
- "The Congress recommends that legal provisions at national level allow IDPs to exercise their right to vote by facilitating the procedures for changing residence and registration on voters’ lists."
- "In order to avoid disenfranchisement and to facilitate the right to return, IDPs may be allowed to vote in their former places of residence, provided that security, legality and transparency of elections can be assured in accordance with international standards and best practices."
- "In case IDPs are deprived of their political rights, they must be granted access to an effective system of contestation, including complaint and appeal procedures, in the respect of relevant fair trial standards."
- "Along similar lines, standards of the Council of Europe require member states to “grant electoral rights to all their citizens (nationals), without imposing residency requirements”, “to take appropriate legal and practical measures to enable internally displaced persons to effectively exercise their right to vote in national, regional or local elections and to ensure that this right is not infringed by obstacles of a practical nature” and “ to ensure that IDPs can exercise their right to participate in public affairs at all levels, including their right to vote or stand for election, which may require special measures such as IDP voter registration drives, or absentee ballots”."
- "Against this background, the responsibility of social media platforms within the framework of current political / campaign finance regimes to ensure transparency and accountability of ad placement, expenditure and attribution in order to better inform citizens of the context in which electoral choices are being made, gains critical importance."
- "Two essential elements of the internet are its instantaneity and its interactivity, which significantly affect the time frame established for the realisation of the electoral campaign. It would be interesting to reconsider the concept of soliciting votes, a process which is divided between periods of pre-campaign (or permanent campaign) and campaign. Similarly, the expediency of distinguishing between financing of campaigns and financing of political parties appears questionable."
- "It is also necessary to address the issue of the ban of political campaigns during the day before the election, whose nature clashes with that of the internet as an asynchronous medium, in which content is permanent and accessible to everyone at all times, without political parties needing to take any action whatsoever: political events, messages, videos, propaganda, etc. from the entire campaign are available to the citizen, including the day before the election."
- "Therefore, the Venice Commission has issued two recommendations which remain highly relevant and need to be implemented: - Revising rules and regulations on political advertising, in terms of access to the media (updating broadcasting quotas, limits and reporting categories, introducing new measures covering internet-based media, platforms and other services, addressing the implications of micro targeting) and in terms of spending (broadening of scope of communication channels covered by the relevant legislation, addressing the monitoring capacities of national authorities. "
- "Therefore, the Venice Commission has issued two recommendations which remain highly relevant and need to be implemented: - Ensuring accountability of internet intermediaries, in terms of transparency and access to data enhancing transparency of spending, specifically for political advertising. In particular, internet intermediaries should provide access to data on paid political advertising, so as to avoid facilitating illegal (foreign) involvement in elections, and to identify the categories of target audiences."
- "Measures such as the adoption of corporate digital ethics codes and of self-regulatory mechanisms to solve conflicts between companies and users would also allow greater regulatory flexibility for the benefit of the interests of users and companies, while depressurising the relationship with the government and promoting co-responsibility of online behaviours."
- "Any language requirements should not present an unreasonable limitation on candidacies and should be clearly provided for by law. Language tests should be transparent, objective, non-discriminatory and administered fairly."
- "For instance, participating States could consider facilitating the efforts of citizens belonging to national minorities to exercise their right to vote by introducing targeted measures to overcome specific difficulties, such as language barriers, including by providing readily accessible information and materials about voting in minority languages in areas inhabited by minorities."
- "Special measures to promote the election of national-minority candidates to public office should be encouraged. For example, experience has shown that lowering the number of supporting signatures required for the registration of candidates from national-minority parties can be an effective special measure. This could also be combined with an exemption from the requirement to surpass a nationwide threshold in proportional representation systems. When determining the size of electoral deposits, contribution and spending limits, eligibility thresholds and other parameters of electoral frameworks, states should consider their impact on the participation of candidates belonging to national minorities and, if needed, take targeted measures to ensure that the right to effective participation of minorities in the electoral processes is not unduly restricted."
- "In most cases, those majoritarian systems that are based on single-seat electoral districts will only be advantageous for minority representation in states where minorities are concentrated territorially. (…) If a national minority community is dispersed throughout the state, it would not necessarily be ensured representation because there may not be sufficient votes to ensure a national-minority winner in any of the single-seat districts. "
- "The representation of a sizable concentrated national minority achieved in a single-seat district may prove to be less than the representation that would be achieved under a proportional system, as majoritarian candidates may receive more votes than are necessary to win seats."
- "There are also implications for national minorities in the choice between FPTP and majority systems. In a FPTP system, there is no incentive to seek votes across constituencies if the national minority represents the largest percentage of voters but not the majority. In a majority system, there could be an incentive to seek votes outside the national minority in order to acquire the required majority."
- "Proportional systems produce results more representative of different opinions, including those of national minorities."
- "Ideally, both national and regional thresholds should be low enough to give national-minority parties the chance to have their candidates elected to a national legislature."
- "Electoral systems that provide the possibility of preferential voting, such as AV and STV systems, enable voters to indicate how they would vote if their preferred candidate lost, by indicating second, third and subsequent choices."
- "For example, national-minority parties can be exempted from the need to surpass a legal threshold in order to qualify for seat allocation or can benefit from a lower legal threshold than other parties to obtain representation."
- "While the principle of one person, one vote is one of the most fundamental rules of democratic electoral systems, in some cases a dual voting system can be used to promote representation of minority communities."
- "According to a study by the Venice Commission, dual voting is an exceptional measure that has to be within the legal framework of the constitution and may be permitted if it respects the principle of proportionality in its various aspects. This implies that it can only be justified if: - It is impossible to reach the aim pursued through other less intrusive measures that do not infringe upon equal voting rights; - It has a transitional character; and - It concerns only a numerically small minority."
- "If there is the political will to ensure the representation of such minorities, this can be achieved by introducing special measures through reserved seats. Reserved seats are contested within a minority community and filled by people representing minority communities."
- "Authorities should ensure that IDPs are able to exercise their right to political participation while they are displaced and upon their return or relocation. Various authorities and institutions, including the electoral management body, share the responsibility of ensuring that provisions for registration and voting are established and that these processes are accessible."
- "Activities undertaken by public security providers during an election should be construed as a public service and be guided by the interests of public order and the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms. The public-service culture in the delivery of security services should be promoted as an approach conducive to enhancing pubic confidence and to facilitating interaction and information exchange between electoral stakeholders and the security services."
- "A government may allocate additional funds to programmes benefitting historically disadvantaged groups in order to enable such groups to enjoy their rights on a par with others in society."
- "Further, in order to alleviate the effects of past discrimination and to enhance future participation, it is appropriate for the legal framework to include special electoral rules and voting arrangements for national minorities."
- "A credible process of signature verification would include the verification of all signatures submitted up to the point when the minimum number of verified signatures required for registration has been reached. Once the minimum number of signatures has been established, the political party or candidate should be registered."
- "States should make particular efforts, taking advantage of technological developments, to ensure that the broadest possible diversity of media content, including general interest content, is accessible to all groups in society, particularly those which may have specific needs or face disadvantage or obstacles when accessing media content, such as minority groups, refugees, children, the elderly and persons with cognitive or physical disabilities. This implies that such media content should be made available in different languages and in suitable formats and that it should be easy to find and use."
- "As an important public source of unbiased information and diverse political opinions, public service media must remain independent from political or economic interference and achieve high editorial standards of impartiality, objectivity and fairness."
- "Public service media should be subject to constant public scrutiny and be accountable and transparent when performing their functions as they have the obligation to serve the public in all its diversity, including minority communities that would not be served in a purely commercial market. Public service media must also take into account the gender equality perspective in terms of both content and staff."
- "To ensure proper administration of the EDR process, the election administration at both the central and local levels should be free from any political interference and guided by the fair implementation of laws. Irrespective of the composition of the election administration body, its independence should be expressed in clear and transparent proceedings."
- "Election dispute resolution must be accessible to all."
- "While fees are a means of preventing frivolous complaints, they may also create a barrier to the dispute process, especially for women and other under-represented groups."
- "Standard complaint forms, either physical or online, also offer complainants the guidance on the elements required for filing. Developing filing standards that are clear and accessible to all election stakeholders gative bodies in processing complaints impartially and effectively. "
- "It should be emphasized that, as discussed above, legitimate complaints that are incomplete or do not meet other requirements should not necessarily be dismissed on procedural grounds. Issues of due process should be balanced in the decision to dismiss a case."
- "Constitutional, legal and regulatory provisions that oversee controversy or appeals in electoral matters should be drafted in clear and straightforward language to ensure that it is easily understood by stakeholders, observers, and especially by dispute resolution bodies."