Voting and mental illness: the silent constituency

Abstract

Mental illness has been long associated with denial of certain human rights, social exclusion and political disempowerment. Too often, the effects of adverse social, economic and political circumstances, along with stigma, constitute a form of ‘structural violence’, which impairs access to psychiatric and social services, and amplifies the effects of mental illness in the lives of sufferers and their families. Existing literature indicates that voting rates are low among people with mental illness and, whereas voting preferences in the mentally ill may tend towards the liberal end of the political spectrum, they do not differ dramatically from the overall population. Rates of voting could be improved by mental health service users, service providers, advocacy services and others through (a) improved awareness of voting rights; (b) provision of information, especially to inpatients; (c) assessments of voting capacity, where indicated, using standardised, well-proven tools; and (d) pro-active voter-registration programmes.

Mental illness and the left

“…The present study investigated a large dataset of representative adult Americans to see whether there was a relationship between political ideology and mental health. Prior research and media claims had indicated these variables were related such that left-wing ideology was associated with worse mental health (Bullenkamp & Voges, 2004;Duckworth et al, 1994;Guhname, 2007;Howard & Anthony, 1977;Kelly, 2014;Lemoine, 2020;Unorthodox Theory, 2020). The results of the present study are in line with previous claims, in particular concerning people who reported being "extremely liberal", though this is a small minority of persons in the study (about 5% in 2018, cf.…”

“…It has been reported that left-wingers or liberals (US sense) tend to be more mentally ill than right-wingers or conservatives (Bullenkamp & Voges, 2004;Duckworth et al, 1994;Guhname, 2007;Howard & Anthony, 1977;Kelly, 2014;Unorthodox Theory, 2020). This suggestion is consistent with other research with other research showing that religiousness predicts both mental and physical health (AbdAleati et al, 2016;Cotton et al, 2006;Dutton et al, 2018;Moreira-Almeida et al, 2006;Seeman et al, 2003;VanderWeele, 2017), given the known strong relationship between political conservatism and religiousness (Koenig & Bouchard Jr., 2006;Ludeke et al, 2013).…”

Special Populations, Special Challenges

“…The same is true for people who reside in institutional settings. Those in groups homes and hospitals are often unaware of their voting rights, including their right to accommodations under the ADA (Kelly, 2014). Patient Voting is an organization that was founded in 2018 to address patients' rights in institutional health settings.…”

The limitation of voting rights for people with permanent mental disabilities in Indonesia: a debate between reasonable and unreasonable rights

“…However, regarding the rights owned by every human being, the slightest impact should be considered, and no party should be allowed to revoke these rights. Kelly (2014) conducted a research on patients with mental disabilities in Germany, and the result indicates as follows:…”