by John Traveler

Created on: September 17, 2009   Last Updated: September 19, 2009

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.

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