Kansas Health Institute | Information For Policy Makers. Health for Kansans.

TOPEKA — Mental health advocates are gathering data for a fall election campaign aimed at dropping three words from the state constitution.

The three words – “mental illness or” - allow the Legislature to deny someone with mental illness the right to vote.

“The way the constitution reads now, the Legislature can take away the right to vote from two groups of people – criminals and people with a mental illness,” said Rocky Nichols, executive director of the Disability Rights Center of Kansas. “We think that’s just plain wrong.”

The proposed change will be one of two proposed constitutional amendments on the Nov. 2 general election ballot.

“We’re the second question,” said Rick Cagan, executive director of the Kansas chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

“We need to get people educated so they don’t forget we’re there,” he said. “I don’t know that there’s an organized opposition. What we’re up against, I think, is apathy.”

The first question on the ballot seeks to clarify or emphasize that the right to bear arms already delineated in the constitution is an an individual not just a collective right.

The Sunflower Foundation has agreed to underwrite a poll of voter views on both mental illness and a mentally ill person’s right to vote.

“We’ve been interested in looking at mental health issues, especially regarding access to care, for some time,” said Billie Hall, chief executive of the Topeka-based foundation. “With this polling, we’re specifically looking at public attitudes toward mental illness. If those attitudes cause someone to worry about what others would say if they sought the care they need, that’s an access issue.”

Hall said the foundation plans to share the results of the polling with the Kansas Mental Health Coalition, which, in turn, will develop the campaign promoting adoption of the amendment.

The polling is expected to begin this week.

“From our point of view, this is a really critical issue for us,” Cagan said. “We’re going to have to get the grassroots stirred up because this is it, we’re not going to have another chance at this.”

Though the constitution allows the Legislature to deny the mentally ill the right to vote, no one is aware of anyone with a mental illness being turned away at the polls or kept from registering.

But that’s not the point, Cagan said. “The issue is stigma,” he said. “You can’t see that language in the constitution and not come to the conclusion that it perpetuates stigma.”

In 1974, Kansas voters approved an amendment that trimmed the list of those who could be disqualified from voting. Among those dropped from the list:

• Anyone who had been “discharged from the service of the United States, unless reinstated.”

• Anyone found “guilty of defrauding the government.”

• Anyone deemed “not competent.”

• Anyone who had “voluntarily borne arms against” the U.S. government after April1, 1861 or “aided and abetted” those who did.

• Anyone who had been found guilty of “giving or receiving” a bribe.

• Anyone “under guardianship” or “insane.”

The 1974 amendment replaced “insane” with “mentally ill.”

A constitutional provision denying inmates and felons “...unless pardoned or restored to his civil rights,” the right to vote remains intact, which means those behind bars or on parole cannot vote but those who have served their time and been freed are allowed to vote.