Serious question: can a person adjudicated mentally incompetent or certified by a psychiatrist to

[Atticus]

be suffering from some form of mental illness cast a valid vote?

Are there any legal standards for determining---for want of a better general term---whether a person is "sane" enough to cast a vote?

[Runningdawg]

1. When would the test be given? At registration? The day of voting? And by whom?

Several people I know are considered sane, but miss 3 days of meds and its a different story.

[Twoflower]

2. I sure as fuck hope so. My social anxiety might look too "Crazy" to many people.

[Caliman73]

3. Here is the statute from California

Elections Code:

Elections Code section 2208 now establishes a presumption that a person is competent to vote regardless of his or her conservatorship status. A person may be declared mentally incompetent and therefore disqualified from voting only if a court or, in certain cases, a jury finds by clear and convincing evidence that the person cannot communicate, with or without reasonable accommodations, a desire to participate in the voting process and the person is subject to a conservatorship or is gravely disabled, as specified.

[doc03]

4. It's a serious question but I can't help it. If not how do

Qanon people manage to vote?

[LiberatedUSA]

5. If that were the case...

Last edited Wed Apr 27, 2022, 04:40 PM - Edit history (1)

…that rights could be stripped away based on a person going to a mental health facility to get help, then they will avoid it for fear of a diagnosis being used to take their vote, their guns, freedom and what have you.

So I guess in order to make sure people are sane to vote, you would need to force mandatory mental health evaluations before voting or doing anything.

That doesn’t sound constitutional.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

6. It sounds like some bright idea to punish Republicans

Proposed by a well-meaning someone without any idea of its ramifications.

[Sympthsical]

7. You'd need a court order or judgement

At least, that's the case in California.

In the care system, there can be people who are profoundly mentally incapacitated who may have family members or caregivers who simply vote absentee for them - i.e. they're abusing their position to functionally cast two votes.

I personally never encountered anything like this, but I did look into it once. Someone in the system with advanced dementia had a son who was managing his mom's absentee ballots, and the daughter inquired to a co-worker about it (siblings who hated each other with different politics). I don't recall hearing any follow up about that instance.

So, there are controls in place regarding this sort of thing. However, I imagine the number of times it's actually used or brought before a judge is vanishingly small. And the kind of mental incapacity would have to be a fairly high bar.

Mental illness covers a variety of conditions, so you'd have to be very specific about what you're advocating for here.

Also, the pathologizing of opposing politics is a road no one should be going down. Almost all of the wacky, homoeopathy-loving, anti-vaxx, naturopathic crazy people I met (well, before Covid) tended to be seriously liberal people (think: Berkeley, Marin County types). Covid has somehow spread that crazy around to other political areas.

To limit voting, we'd have to be talking severely disabled. Not, say, Q-Anon.

[Chautauquas]

8. I worked at a psychiatric hospital for many years

and the patients on the unit where I worked were able to vote if they wanted to, and most of them wanted to. All the patients on that unit, 22 of them, were legally designated as "not guilty by reason of incompetence (sometimes the wording on the documents was "not guilty by reason by reason of insanity), so they were able to vote, even though a high percentage of them were going to remain confined for a long time for the serious crimes they committed.

Interesting to note that most of them told me, right before I retired, that they were going to vote for Trump.

[Hortensis]

19. Interesting input. Most "sane" criminals would vote tRump also.

Positive in its own way to hear that most residents wanted to vote, though.

[Lettuce Be]

9. I don't think this is a thing. You register to vote. If you're able, you vote.

We can't start disqualifying people because they are this or that. I get what you're saying, but I'm going to have to come down hard on my no.

[iemanja]

10. Yes

Why are you so anxious to deny people the right to vote?

Nearly half of American suffer from some kind of mental illness in their lifetimes. Would you see us all denied the franchise? And what makes you think you are superior to them?

[Atticus]

13. WOW! Your post is a textbook example of how to create straw men!

Where in my OP is there anything that indicates I am "anxious to deny people the right to vote?

Where in my OP is there anything about denyng the right to vote to anyone who had ever suffered from some type of mental illness?

And, finally, how does ASKING A QUESTION mean that I think I am superior to anyone?

I don't understand the animosity.

[iemanja]

15. You asked if the mentally ill should be allowed to vote

Clearly the answer you wanted is no. Pretending otherwise doesn’t pass the smell test.

[dumbcat]

16. And where was it clear in the OP

that the answer he wanted is no? Hint: It's not there.

And no, he didn't ask, "... if the mentally ill should be allowed to vote" No where in the OP is the term "should" used. Maybe you should try to read a little more carefully.

Clearly you are way off base here. You should apologize or delete your post.

[Atticus]

17. Speaking of "smell tests", did you even READ my OP? OR does just making up stuff make

it easier to criticize?

Nowhere in that brief OP do I say I "don't want mentally ill people to vote".

[iemanja]

18. You seem to have an issue with other responses in this thread

and have spent your time telling people they haven't responded appropriately. https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=16636273
In fact, you'd left no subsequent response that wasn't negative. Perhaps you should ask yourself why that is?

[BlackSkimmer]

20. Well pointed out.

The OP seemed obvious to me also as to the responses desired.

[Atticus]

21. Yeah, my bad. I call strawmen strawmen and snark snark. How could I be so inconsiderate?

Have a great evening.

[H2O Man]

11. Yes.

[brooklynite]

12. Serious answer: yes.

The Soviet Union used to ship off annoying opponents to psychiatric hospitals. Perhaps the Republican Party will do the same?

[Atticus]

14. That was not a "serious answer". That was snark. nt