Following a program of intense product development and in response to directives set out in the Elections Act of 2022, Pakflatt has now received initial orders from 3 early adopting local authorities in the UK.

The Elections Act 2022, mandates that Returning Officers will provide such equipment as is reasonable for the purposes of enabling, or making it easier for voters who are blind or partially sighted, to vote independently, in secret and with confidence, at local and national elections.

Building on his experience since the 2001 General Election, when he led the team that invented and deployed a tactile voting device (TVD) for the blind, Patrick McGonagle set about inventing an audio assisted version of his TVD to achieve this objective.

His now patented McGonagle Reader system (MGR) has been exhaustively tested by NCBI with blind voters in Ireland and most recently by RNIB at by-elections in England, with very positive results.

Indeed, Pakflatt demonstrated MGR to blind people at the RNIB’s “Tech for Life” event in the Europa Hotel, Belfast on Wed 28th of February. Those in attendance universally validated the system and were enthusiastic about the prospect of blind people finally being able to vote independently and in secret at elections.

Pakflatt MD and inventor of the product Patrick McGonagle said “it was hugely enlightening to observe blind people using MGR and telling us of their appreciation that we had put such design effort and investment into something to help them exercise their right to vote in secret. We realised yet again, how crucial it is for sighted designers to hear at first-hand, what it is like for blind people to carry out the task of voting and feel confident that they have cast their votes as intended, without the need for a companion or election official assisting them.”

The MGR uses a system of audio prompts through headphones, to confidentially guide the voter on each candidate and uses tactility through ringing doorbells, opening doors that reveal windows & directing their pencil to the only space on the ballot paper where a mark may be made for their preferred candidate.

While this new voting system is primarily for the benefit of blind and partially sighted voters, it did become apparent that it will also assist citizens with cognitive disabilities [neurodiversity] and foreign nationals who are indeed registered electors but have English as a second language ]ESL] and have difficulty reading English text, defined by the RNIB as a print disability.

Pakflatt has been a world leader in accessible elections equipment for over three decades and has been recognised by The Department for the Economy in Northern Ireland as a Platinum Level Innovator.