When Ken Steele’s mental condition improved dramatically after taking medications, he realized that the New York legislature was planning to cut back funding for mental health and social services.

"I knew from my 32 years of experience in and out of psychiatric hospitals with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, that these cutbacks would have a negative impact on people with serious mental illnesses and increase the potential for tragic incidents, which has happened in the last few years," Steele told Psychiatric News.

Steele realized that voting could make a difference in his life and the lives of others with serious mental illnesses. "Receiving the voter election card and making a choice on the ballot is like having a key to a box that opens up other areas of life."

He founded the Mental Health Voter Empowerment Project in New York City in 1995 and, along with volunteers, visits group homes, clubhouses, and other facilities to register individuals with mental illness to vote.

He says he has a database of 35,000 people in the New York area whom he keeps informed about mental health issues.

Steele works out of his apartment in New York City where he also produces a newsletter on mental health mailed to 40,000 people including patients, their friends and families, and providers.

Steele developed a training manual that is used by the Mental Health America (NMHA) and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to organize voter registration projects in other states.

Participation Pays Off

Steele urges persons with mental illness to vote not just in the presidential primaries and general elections but in state and local elections for legislators as well as in governor’s races, because they will decide the future of the local mental health system.

David Fassler, M.D., chair of APA’s Council on Children, Adolescents, and Their Families said, "Any movement that involves more people in the political process especially on legislation that directly affects their lives is a positive step.

"I have seen firsthand in Vermont that consumer involvement makes a difference in the legislative process. The parity bill would never have passed without the overwhelming support and advocacy by consumers and family members. That was followed by a bill that mandates that consumers and/or family members are included on boards of all community mental health centers."

Michael Fitzpatrick, national director for NAMI’s "I Vote, I Count" campaign, said, "We want to create a voting bloc to help elect candidates who will support issues important to our members including parity and increased funding of the mental health system."

Fitzpatrick, like Steele, puts on workshops in hospitals and other facilities to educate individuals with mental illness about how to vote. To help them get to the polls, Fitzpatrick mentions free transportation at various public agencies and that voters can use absentee ballots. A 1993 National Voter Registration Act, the so-called "Motor-Voter" law requires states to allow citizens to register to vote in motor vehicle departments and other public agencies.

Fitzpatrick, who lives in Maine, is also educating local citizens about an upcoming referendum on a discriminatory law in the Maine constitution that bars people with mental illness from voting if they are under guardianship. The state legislature recently voted overwhelmingly to overturn the long-standing prohibition, and the public will vote on it this fall. A similar referendum was defeated in 1997 after six group-home residents with mental illness tried unsuccessfully to register to vote in the 1996 presidential election.

Maine is one of 40 states with constitutional or statutory laws that restrict the voting rights of people with mental disorders. Nine states prohibit voting by people under guardianship. Thirty-one states bar people adjudicated by the courts to be mentally incompetent from voting.

Fourteen of the 31 states identify those individuals as "idiots" or "insane persons," "persons of unsound mind," or who are "not quiet and peaceable," according to Kay Schriner, a research fellow at the Fulbright Institute at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock. Schriner is the lead author of a report titled "The Last Suffrage Movement: Voting Rights for People with Cognitive and Emotional Disabilities," published in the Fall 1997 Publius.

Schriner said these laws originated in the mid-1800s to create a standard for eligibility to vote. Those excluded from voting were criminals, poor people, and people with disabilities.

"These laws have a chilling effect on how the persons with mental illness see themselves. The message is ‘I am not as worthy as other citizens to vote and make demands in the political sphere,’" said Schriner.

Fitzpatrick said that these restrictive laws "reflect an era when people were not treated and [were] put in institutions. They do not reflect the abilities of many people with mental illnesses today who live and work in the community because of improved medications and treatment."

Nonetheless, some legislators appear reluctant to change the discriminatory laws. "Congress did not pass an amendment to the 1993 "Motor-Voter" law that would have eliminated states’ discriminatory voting provisions," said Schriner.

"I believe people are afraid of allowing people adjudicated to be mentally incompetent or under guardianship to vote because of the stigma surrounding mental illness and mental retardation," said Schriner.

She argues that the reasons people are put under guardianship, including that they can’t manage their finances, do not reflect their intelligence or competence to vote.

The results of a study conducted during the 1967 New York mayoral election found that the voting patterns of patients with mental illness in the Bronx State Hospital were not significantly different from non-institutionalized citizens in their district, according to Schriner’s report. A 1970 study found that voting patterns of patients with mental illness in public and private hospitals mirrored those of non-patients from similar socioeconomic backgrounds, states the report.

Another fear some people have is that persons with mental illness will be unduly influenced by others on how they vote, said Schriner. "Undue influence of anyone who votes is illegal and there is no reason to support that persons with mental illness are more likely to be influenced than other people."

She does not support establishing a test to determine competency to vote unless it is applied to everyone. "The only criteria should be registering to vote, which many people with a mental or physical disability could do with reasonable accommodations," said Schriner. —C.L.