Vandre Johnson wanted to vote — but there was a problem. Johnson had suffered a brain injury in a 1991 car accident and was declared a ward of the Baltimore City Department of Social Services in 2004.
Under state election law, if you are “under guardianship for mental disability,” you cannot vote, regardless of your capacity to cast a ballot or even a judge’s determination that you have that specific capacity.
Lauren Young, director of litigation at the Maryland Disability Law Center, and other lawyers at the MDLC confronted the dilemma in Johnson’s case after he indicated to his mother that he wanted to vote.
On the morning of Oct. 14, the last day to register, Johnson and his lawyers appeared before Baltimore City Circuit Judge Althea M. Handy to get his guardianship terminated. The Department of Social Services had joined the petition ahead of time, and Handy granted it.
Johnson was able to vote from Ravenwood Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center, where he lives, by absentee ballot.
Young: "It’s a nice story for him." But many other state residents with guardians cannot shed the legal supervisors of their personal affairs. "Terminating Johnson’s guardianship entirely was the most expedient solution for all parties involved in that case, the law must be changed to prevent future injustice."
Maryland is among a minority of states nationwide that make voting conditional upon mental competence, a policy advocates for the disabled say is unconstitutionally overbroad.
In 2001, a federal judge in Maine found that state’s ban on voting by individuals under guardianship by reason of mental illness violated procedural due process, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Under state election law, if you are “under guardianship for mental disability,” you cannot vote, regardless of your capacity to cast a ballot or even a judge’s determination that you have that specific capacity.
Lauren Young, director of litigation at the Maryland Disability Law Center, and other lawyers at the MDLC confronted the dilemma in Johnson’s case after he indicated to his mother that he wanted to vote.
On the morning of Oct. 14, the last day to register, Johnson and his lawyers appeared before Baltimore City Circuit Judge Althea M. Handy to get his guardianship terminated. The Department of Social Services had joined the petition ahead of time, and Handy granted it.
Johnson was able to vote from Ravenwood Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Center, where he lives, by absentee ballot.
Young: "It’s a nice story for him." But many other state residents with guardians cannot shed the legal supervisors of their personal affairs. "Terminating Johnson’s guardianship entirely was the most expedient solution for all parties involved in that case, the law must be changed to prevent future injustice."
Maryland is among a minority of states nationwide that make voting conditional upon mental competence, a policy advocates for the disabled say is unconstitutionally overbroad.
In 2001, a federal judge in Maine found that state’s ban on voting by individuals under guardianship by reason of mental illness violated procedural due process, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Full Article and Source:
Disability rights groups say disenfranchisement of wards goes too far
See also:
Voting Rights
Thank you for a perfect story for today.
ReplyDeleteI agree. It's very fitting.
ReplyDelete