The National Electoral Commission has announced that visually impaired Rwandans will be able to vote for the first time in this year’s presidential elections which will take place on August 4.

Previously, visually impaired people have delegated people to vote for them by revealing their preferred candidate but that will change because the National Electoral Commission agreed to start using braille voting papers.

Braille is a form of written language for blind people, in which characters are represented by patterns of raised dots that are felt with fingertips.

Charles Munyaneza, the Executive Secretary of the National Electoral Commission told Sunday Times that by July, voters’ register including visually impaired persons will also be available showing who can vote using braille.

“As we update the voters’ register, we are also trying to add the list of visually impaired persons who can read and use braille in voting. By July the list will be available together with printed braille polls sheets to be used,” he said.

 Over 6.6 million Rwandans are expected to vote in the forthcoming presidential election but the process to update the voters’ register is ongoing under the commission’s supervision until May 2017.

Rwandans will go to polls on Friday August 4, 2017 and those who live abroad will vote the day before (August 3). Read full story here.