Get a Widget for this title
RSS FeedShould mentally ill people be allowed to vote?
Results so far:
| Yes | 55% | 275 votes | Total: 503 votes | |
| No | 45% | 228 votes |
Yes
Write now
Print
Invite a writer™
Add to FavoritesThe title given to this debate is misleading - since the normal, default voting rule for adults in our society is that anyone may vote unless there is some specific reason why they should be prevented from doing so (like having been recently convicted of a felony, for example). A more honest phrasing would be: "Should mentally ill people be disenfranchised (or specifically excluded from voting)?" You could just as easily ask that same question of any other definable group of people, for example: "Should high school dropouts be prevented from voting?", or "Should unemployed people be prevented from voting?", or for that matter, "Should stockbrokers be prevented from voting?" Just to ask the question is a sign of prejudice against the group that is asked of, and I don't think that any of these groups, including mentally ill people, should be excluded from voting if they want to.
In almost any election, a lot of votes are cast for what many people would think are stupid choices, yet somehow the country survives. In most contests, no one person's vote makes much of a difference - the results are just a reflection of the common wisdom (or lack of wisdom), and for each individual voting is more a sign of them being participants in society than it is of them having any great amount of influence on it. For each person, voting is more of an opportunity for self-expression than it is anything else, and to try and arbitrarily take away this right of self-expression from any group seems awfully arrogant to me. What makes those of you who are so proud of your alleged normalcy think that your opinions are more valuable and deserving of being expressed than the opinions of those of us who have been given a psychiatric diagnosis?
To deny a group the right to vote isn't just a symbolic exclusion, however, since specific steps would have to be taken to enforce this exclusion. It would probably require setting up a database containing the names of everyone to be prohibited from voting. Something like that could and probably would be used for other kinds of discriminatory purposes as well. It could also be used to restrict a person's opportunities for housing or employment, for example. Even if it was originally set up just to disenfranchise some people from voting, lists like that have a way of being used for things beyond their original purposes.
Anyone who honestly believes that it might be a good idea to specifically prohibit people with a psychiatric diagnosis from voting must not realize how easily and subjectively people can be given this kind of label. Under the right circumstances, almost anyone could be labeled as having one of the many different categories of mental illness: bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, attention deficit disorder, depression, and dozens of other, lesser-known diagnoses. There is a lot of subjectivity involved in giving a person a psychiatric diagnosis, and many people who eagerly support repressive measures like disenfranchisement against people called "mentally ill" could be surprised someday to find themselves included in that group. A person's wealth and status in society can sometimes protect them from being diagnosed as mentally ill, however, and I think it is sometimes true that the difference between someone being called "eccentric" or "crazy" is just a matter of whether or not they have much money.
Learn more about this author, Kent Reedy.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
No
This question leads to a slippery slope we don't want to get started down. The problem is, who is mentally ill and who is not, and who is going to decide. When it comes to voting, the U.S. Congress has the ultimate say. Considering the political situation these days, this citizen is not sure that having a bunch of politicians, Washington bureaucrats, corporate and special interest lobbyists, start defining who can or can not vote is such a good idea.
Depression is a malady that effects a significant percentage of the American public who actively seek treatment for it, and probably many more who just live with it. In fact, it is safe to say, that a majority of Americans will suffer some degree of depression at some point in their life. Depression is also a very real and very serious mental illness, Should we, therefore, take away a persons right to vote who has ever been diagnosed with depression?
Many people in the United States, and the rest of the world we presume, suffer from the malady of migraine headaches. Anyone who has ever experienced a migraine can tell you, that at the climax of its episode, their ability to function in any normal cognitive sense is severely impacted. Because migraine headaches involve the brain, they are considered in clinical terms to be a form of mental illness, so should we eliminate all people who suffer migraines from the voter registration roles?
It is a known fact, that elevated or for that matter below normal glucose levels in the blood stream significantly impair brain function and the cognitive process of reasonability. Since diabetics, particularly those who are not well controlled - monitor and adjust their blood glucose levels effectively - can be presumed to be mentally effected when their blood sugar levels are out of the normal range, should we consider restricting their right to vote? If the answer is yes, one out of five voters would be denied their constitutional right.
We have just considered three cases in which a persons cognitive function is impaired or might be impaired. Only the first, depression, is today recognized as a diagnosis of mental illness, but the other two very easily and quickly could be as well, should some group think they could gain a political advantage in doing so.
For instance, atheists, most of whom believe that super naturalism is the product of delusional thinking might question the sanity of anyone who believes in superstitions and mystical apparitions. What about all the people who question Obam's birth status and some of the other aberrations that are happening on the American political scene today.
Couldn't and shouldn't the American people question these folks sanity and fitness to participate in the democratic process? It's a pretty absurd notion, isn't it?
In a more realistic vein, people who are confined to mental institutions for more severe mental disorders and psychosis are already prohibited from voting, simply because they are not permitted to get to the voting booth, or coherent enough to request an absentee ballot. Furthermore, the number of people we are talking about here is minuscule, and not likely to make any difference in any election outcome.
It took a hundred and fifty years for American women to earn the right to vote and African Americans almost 200 years. Today, the only citizens in this country who do not have the right to vote are convicted felons, and that's the way we should leave it.
As soon as you single out one class of voters as unworthy of their constitutional right to vote for their elected officials, you open a Pandora's box of other reasons why people in this country should be denied the right to participate in our democratic process. We don't really want to go there.
Learn more about this author, John Traveler.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Difference of opinion? Debate now.
- Political Issues
- Should the government put a limit on lottery winnings to welfare recipients?
- Did President Obama's speech in Cairo launch a 'new beginning' in relations between Muslims and the U.S.?
- Is George Bush an able commander-in-chief for the US military?
- Is the U.S. ready for a viable third party?
- Has Obama's stimulus plan been written too quickly?
- Will President Obama's National Health Care Reform be effective?
