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The Mental Health America (NMHA) has initiated a large-scale effort to encourage people with mental illness to register, become informed, and vote. As part of that effort, NMHA recently released the Voter Education and Empowerment manual to help advocates organize mental health patients for the fall's elections and beyond.
Mental health consumers, like other Americans, possess the right to vote, but they may not be aware of it. In all but six states, people with mental illnesses are discouraged from voting by the archaic language in election laws. Thirteen states bar voting by "idiots," "the insane," or "lunatics" without specifying how such status is determined. Thirty-one states prohibit voting by people who are "mentally incompetent."
The NMHA hopes to educate patients, as well as family, friends, and health care providers, that only incarceration or a current legal determination of mental incapacitation can deny an individual his or her voting rights. Most people with mental illnesses, though, are not considered "mentally incapacitated."
"Everyone, regardless of disability, has the right to full participation in society," said Michael Faenza, NMHA president and chief executive officer. "By engaging in the electoral process through registering and voting, mental health consumers can weigh in on many of the decisions that affect their lives, such as health insurance parity, disability rights, and government budgeting for mental health services and treatment."
The NMHA's voter education effort "fits into the empowerment issue in general for people with mental illness," said Tom Leibfried, director of the NMHA's Office of Consumer Advocacy. "We encourage any and all people with mental illness to get out" and register.
Though the issue of the voting rights of mentally ill people has been a controversial one, said Leibfried, that situation may slowly change through education. Discrimination against the mentally ill has lessened somewhat because of the Americans With Disabilities Act. In addition, he said, psychiatry has done a lot to show that mental illness is real, diagnosable, and treatable. Mental illness or hospitalization for it "doesn't doom you to a life of being incapable," said Leibfried.
The NMHA's Voter Education and Empowerment manual provides information and sample materials on voter registration drives, legal issues, nonpartisan campaign events, and strategies to increase voter turnout. The NMHA distributed the guide to its 330 affiliates as well as to consumer groups and other organizations.
Copies of the manual are available for $5 each by calling the NMHA at (800) 969-NMHA. For more information see its Web site at www.nmha.org.