Voting Barriers for Persons with Disabilities
Halunen Law’s João da Fonseca reports on an important presentation “Addressing Barriers to Voting by Persons with Disabilities.”
Minnesota Chapter Sponsors CLE and Webinar Addressing Barriers to Voting by Persons with Disabilities
By João da Fonseca
Protecting the right of every American to vote is most fundamental to a robust democratic process. Yet, this right has not been enjoyed by every American. For example, only sixty years ago, African Americans were mostly disenfranchised because of legal mechanisms, such as poll taxes, designed to prohibit them from voting. This, despite the constitutional force of the Fifteenth Amendment, which was passed in the 1870s with the explicit purpose of securing the rights of African American men to vote. Things only changed in the 1960s with the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which dismantled these longstanding barriers to voting. Despite these significant victories, up to this day, there remain members of our population who are deprived of the right to vote, including persons with cognitive disabilities.