It's been more than half a century since
it was socially acceptable to call a person with a
developmental disability an "idiot" or a mentally
incompetent person "insane."
But that language lives on in the New
Jersey Constitution.
It's there in Article II, Section I,
dealing with elections and who is eligible to vote.
Paragraph 6 states: "No idiot or insane person shall
enjoy the right of suffrage."
Advocates for the mentally ill say it's
time to dispense with the archaic phrasing. Senate
President Richard Codey (D-Essex) agrees, and plans
today to introduce an amendment to remove it.
"Not only is it insensitive, but it does
not take into account the individual circumstances of
people with varying degrees of disabilities," Codey
said.
If approved by the Legislature, and by
voters in November, the amendment would not give new
rights to people with mental illness or developmental
disability. The U.S. Constitution, the Americans with
Disabilities Act and the U.S. Voting Rights Act already
protect disabled people's right to participate in
elections, said Jennifer Mathis, deputy legal director
of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in
Washington, D.C.
The amendment would deny the vote only to
individuals who were determined by a judge to "lack the
capacity to understand the act of voting."
The chief aim of the bill is to eliminate
the stigmatizing language, first inserted into the
state's constitution in 1844. Codey called its continued
inclusion "a disgrace."
The New Jersey Developmental Disability
Council, which coordinates the Monday Morning Project, a
statewide group of activists for the disabled, urged
Codey to introduce the bill. The language "smacks of
disrespect and an ugly time in history when we treated
people with disabilities as second- or third-class
citizens," said Luke Koppisch, the council's coordinator
for the project. "A lot of people don't realize this is
in the constitution."
Marianne Valls of Jersey City, a college
graduate and a leader of the Hudson County chapter of
the project, said her group was "outraged by the archaic
language ... I feel like we are in the dark ages."
The constitutions of eight
other states -- Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky,
Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico
and Ohio -- also contain the "idiots and
insane" language to describe who cannot
vote, Mathis said.
Some advocates fear the bill
may encounter resistance. In 2002, New
Mexico voters rejected a similar measure.
Without an effective public
education campaign, voters and political
parties may worry the change would make it
easier for disabled voters to be manipulated
into voting for one candidate over another,
said Joseph Young, deputy director of
Protection and Advocacy of New Jersey, a
nonprofit group that represents disabled
clients.
"This is an excellent thing
to do -- we are removing stigmatizing
language -- but it may have unintended
consequences," Young said. "The education of
the public is essential."
Mathis from Bazelon, which
has successfully challenged Maine's
constitution and is challenging Missouri's,
said voter fraud concerns have been a
barrier in other states.
"The answer to that is not
take away the right of people to vote," she
said. "Prosecute voter fraud."
To allay the concern over
potential voter fraud, New Jersey Public
Advocate Ronald Chen said the proposed
amendment would permit a challenge to a
voter's competency to be brought before a
judge, with the burden of proof on the
challenger.
"The courts have set a very
tough standard," said Chen, who helped draft
the bill. "The purpose (of the bill) is not
to change the standard for someone to be
disenfranchised, which is: Do you know you
are making a choice?"
In 1976, an appellate court
upheld a decision in Burlington County that
allowed 33 residents of New Lisbon
Developmental Center in Woodland Township to
vote. Township Clerk Carol Cobb and the
county Board of Elections had refused to
allow them to register because they lived in
a state institution for the mentally
retarded.
The court ruled that living
in an institution does not automatically
mean a person is incapable of making a
choice.
"A mentally retarded person
need not be an 'idiot' and a mentally ill
person need not be 'insane,'" according to
the court opinion.
An appellate panel in 2000
used the same reasoning in ruling that five
Trenton Psychiatric Hospital patients could
cast ballots.
One disabled voter was turned
away from the polls in the most recent
election, Chen said, declining to reveal the
details to protect the person's privacy. The
citizen, who had undergone voter training
provided through the Public Advocate's
Office, returned to the polling place with a
court order outlining his right to
participate and was allowed in, Chen said.
SITE MAP