The NSIOS urged the commission to make all notifications that voters receive by mail prior to election accessible to all, including the blind. This means they should be available in braille or a sound track or in the so-called easy-to-read form for people with other types of disability.

The organisation also said that all forms published by the DVK on its web site and the web site itself should be made accessible to people with disabilities. If the form in not accessible, a voter with disabilities cannot fill it, which means they cannot vote, they argued.

Physical access to polling stations should be enabled also to people with disabilities and ballots should be adjusted to the people with special needs, the NSIOS said. The DVK should also make sure that electoral bodies are educated on the voting procedure for people with disabilities.

Non-compliance with these demands would be a violation of the act on equal opportunities for persons with disabilities, which entered into force in December 2010, and of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which started to take effect in Slovenia in 2008.

The NSIOS said that it had sent similar demands to the DVK on several occasions in the past four years, but they had never been met.

DVK head Dusan Vucko told the STA that there were more than 3,400 polling stations in Slovenia and that not all of them were accessible to people with disabilities. However, every voter has the opportunity to vote, he added.

According to him, the DVK will examine the memo from the NSIOS at its next session. After the 4 December election, an analysis will be made of the ways in which people with disabilities can exercise their right to vote and of the costs of this for the state.

Under the law, local electoral commissions have to make sure that at least one polling station in each of the 88 electoral districts is accessible to the disabled, Vucko said, asserting that this would be the case in the upcoming election.

The electoral committee must also meet a person with a disability in front of the polling station and enable them to cast a ballot. Voting with a special voting device for the blind will be possible in 55 polling stations, the DVK head said.

He pointed out that not all NSIOS's demands and proposals were in the commission's jurisdiction.