91Èȱ¬

Unaccompanied and inside the polling booth, it was my turn to fumble for the pencil I needed to mark the box. In doing so I dislodged the template from the ballot slip, but instead of asking the Returning Officer outside to reposition it for me, I did it myself in order to avoid any more fuss and delay.

Even though I think I managed to roughly line up the edges of the template up with the edges of the ballot form, I can't be sure I did a good enough job to ensure my cross ended up inside the box.

Paper and pencil, even with this relatively new template idea, is never going to be a good method for visually impaired people. Ten years ago the task of voting was like reading newspapers, shopping or filling in forms for the DSS, because I needed somebody else's sight to do it. Nowadays I can do most of these tasks independently, thanks to the internet and my screenreader. One day I hope I'll be able to use it to vote in elections.

I live in London, and this year London voters will be given three ballot papers and five votes on election day. With all those bits of paper and candidates to choose from, I can't see how I'll be able to vote secretly and independently - even if my templates are stuck to the paper. I'm going to have to ask for assistance.

A secure system of online voting is the only solution for me and, I suspect, millions of other disabled people who could log on and register their vote from a home computer. No ballot papers to fiddle with, no Returning Officers who might accidentally read the wrong numbers out even if the template was stuck on, and no loud-mouthed individuals humorously announcing to the world my voting preference.

I'm surprised and disappointed that Blunkett hasn't spoken up and done more for blind voters. And as for the big match, I'm backing France to beat England 1-0.

But before we find out if Becks, Owen and the England team are good enough to beat the mighty French at Euro 2004, there are some elections to get out of the way.

I'm ashamed to admit that I'm far more interested in the result of a football match than I am about the outcome of elections that will determine the politicians and policies which govern me for the foreseeable future. Don't get me wrong, this isn't just 'voter apathy'; my experiences to date as a blind person attempting to cast a vote at the polling station have left me feeling disengaged and disenfranchised from the political process, due to its inaccessible nature.

It's a crazy state of affairs. I'm powerless to influence the outcome of the England vs France game, but thanks to the right to vote, I ought to be able to influence the outcome of the elections through a secret ballot.

I've been eligible to vote for ten years and have voted several times by proxy, but I've only once had the opportunity to exercise the democratic right to a secret vote. That was at the last general election. But despite turning up and putting pen to ballot paper, I'm still not even sure whether I cast a legitimate vote.

Back in 1994, I was as excited about my first vote as I am about the upcoming England vs France clash. I was about to leave blind school, where I resented the rigid authoritarian regime, to study politics at university. The idea that I was about to live a life in the real free world under the rule of democratically-elected politicians was tremendous as far as I was concerned. Naive and idealistic maybe, but who isn't at that age?

I was so chuffed about voting for the first time that it didn't bother me when I had to whisper the name of my chosen candidate to the Returning Officer, so that he could nip into the booth and put the cross in the right box for me. That was the best voting method they could offer at the time, and I accepted that I'd have to rely on somebody else to cast my vote because I couldn't see enough to do it myself.

My participation in the 1997 general election, however, made me realise that I shouldn't have to rely on someone else's help to vote.

I was at university on polling day, and enlisted the help of one of my peers at the polling booth. We reached the front of the queue and were ushered aside by the Returning Officer, whose permission we needed before my mate could cast my vote.

Permission granted, I murmured my choice of candidate to him. To the amusement of everyone else there he shouted, "You socialist b****rd!" I fled the polling station as quickly as I could, feeling annoyed that the private matter of voting had turned into a public circus.

Imagine my relief, then, when I heard about some templates that had been designed to enable blind voters to have a proper anonymous vote at the 2001 general election.

Sent to every polling station, they were made of see-through flimsy plastic and were designed to stick onto the ballot paper over the list of candidates. Each template had numbers written in Braille corresponding to the names on the ballot paper, and flaps above each box which peeled back to enable you to put a cross on the paper underneath, next to your chosen candidate.

The idea was that Returning Officers would tell me which number corresponded to each name so that I could enter the polling booth and register my secret vote. This sounded like a god-send to me, but it turned out to be as unsatisfactory as the first method.

When I requested a template at my local polling station, the Returning Officer told me apologetically that he didn't know how they were supposed to be used. I had to explain that he needed to peel the back off the template and stick it to the ballot paper, and then tell me which number corresponded to which name on the paper.

He fumbled with the template for a couple of minutes, trying to remove the backing, and eventually gave up and asked if it would be OK if he just positioned the template in the right place without securing it. It was late evening, there was a huge queue of people waiting to vote and because I didn't want to hold things up, I relented.