NORWALK, Conn. — Earlier this summer, Connecticut’s Department of Developmental Services sent letters to guardians and conservators of adults with disabilities who live in state institutions, explaining that residents there would “soon be offered an opportunity to register to vote or to participate in voting.”
Efforts to register this community to vote are part of a broader state initiative aimed at improving voter access for people with disabilities, spurred by advocacy from disability rights groups.
“People have the right to vote, and equal access to the voting system is important,” said Kasey Considine, legal director of Disability Rights Connecticut. “If people with disabilities don’t have equal access, then obviously the concern from our organization’s perspective is: Do we have a discriminatory system?”
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Where some see inclusion, though, others have found cause for alarm.
Lori Gaglione, 61, legal guardian for her 63-year-old brother Joey, said she was upset to hear he might be registered to vote. Joey, who lives in a group home in Newington, has intellectual disability and is nonverbal with no understanding of government and no way of expressing preference for a given candidate, Gaglione said.
“All of a sudden there’s this mad push to have these individuals vote when a lot of them don’t speak,” Gaglione said, adding that other guardians she knows felt similarly taken aback. “If you have an individual that doesn’t communicate at all, I think that’s exploiting them.”
While federal law protects the voting rights of people with disabilities in nearly all circumstances, states vary in how they handle the issue, with different policies around voter access and standards for determining who should or shouldn’t be allowed to cast a ballot. In Connecticut, adults with a disability may be deemed incompetent to vote only if their guardian petitions a probate judge, though such requests are rare.
Several years ago, Disability Rights Connecticut and the Massachusetts-based Center for Public Representation began pressing the state to improve voter access to better comply with federal and state law. That began a collaborative process between state officials and advocates from those groups, resulting in a 10-page policy memo the Secretary of the State sent to town clerks and registrars of voters this past April.
The memo outlines numerous steps to ensure voting access for adults with disabilities, including procedures for them to vote early, by absentee ballot and on election day; guidelines to ensure they receive information about the voting process; rules regarding voter assistance; and a reminder about accessibility at polling places.
It emphasizes repeatedly that people with disabilities under state care should have the same opportunities to vote as anyone else.
“Electors with disabilities who are institutionalized in facilities within the state are entitled to the protections in the voting process contained in the State Constitution, state law, and federal civil rights and voting laws,” the Secretary of the State’s office wrote. “All relevant parties must understand and comply with the relevant state and federal laws that establish and protect the fundamental right of persons with disabilities to vote.”
For many people with disabilities and advocates, these were welcome assurances. Barry Tripp, a 65-year-old New Haven resident with cerebral palsy, said he’d like to see the state go as far as possible to ensure people like him can vote, whether they live in the community, as he does, or in a state facility.
“Everybody has a voice, and everybody needs to be heard,” said Tripp, who uses a wheelchair and has sometimes had trouble accessing his polling place. “I feel like it’s a struggle for people with handicaps.”
Connecticut law generally affords people with disabilities an equal right to vote, while still allowing a role for guardians and conservators. As noted in the Secretary of the State’s memo, state law also “provides for notice of upcoming voting to the guardian, conservator, or agent of an institutionalized elector.”
That’s how Gaglione and other guardians came to receive that letter from the Department of Developmental Services, which she said she had never received before.
In an email, DDS spokesperson Kevin Bronson said the notice to guardians was “provided in compliance with CT General Statutes.” The recent memo from the Secretary of the State, Bronson said, offered “an opportunity for the Department to recommit to its efforts regarding voting rights, including those of individuals in DDS Public settings and their legal representatives.”
Upon being told Joey would be offered a chance to register, Gaglione filed a petition to have her brother declared incapable, then argued her case in probate court. The judge ultimately agreed with her, deeming Joey incompetent to vote in any elections.
Despite getting the result she wanted, Gaglione said she’s “disgusted” she had to spend time and money for a judge to tell her what she already knew: that her brother was not capable of voting. It’s not that she doesn’t support any people with disabilities voting, she said. It’s that her brother specifically isn’t equipped to do so and could easily be coerced to vote a certain way.
“Believe me, if he was capable voting, I would be so proud of him to vote and be able to interact with society and make a decision that he felt best with his limitations,” Gaglione said. “I just think this was shady.”
Another guardian, Dora Ferrara, shared similar concerns. Her brother with a disability, Pat, recently sat in on an informational session about voting, and she worried someone would try to coerce him to support certain candidates. The push to register group home residents, she said, “was done behind our backs.”
Ferrara has filed a petition to have her brother ruled incompetent and will have a hearing in early September, she said.
A spokesperson for the Connecticut Probate Court Administrator could not provide data on how often guardians or conservators petition to have a voter ruled incompetent but said such requests are rare, with only “two or three petitions per year systemwide.”
The disability rights advocates fighting for voting access see the issue differently from Gaglione and Ferrara. They argue people with disabilities are often capable of more than others think and should be given every opportunity to participate in elections. If they can’t vote or don’t want to, they don’t have to.
“A lot of the work that we’re trying to do is to overcome those assumptions that people with disabilities — because maybe they’re nonverbal or because maybe they have a cognitive disability — lack the capacity to vote,” said Elissa Gershon, an attorney at the Center for Public Representation. “No other voters are asked to demonstrate their capacity and their understanding of the voting process.”
Gershon notes that posing as someone else to cast a vote or coercing them against their will is illegal, carrying significant penalties, and that there’s no evidence this occurs with any frequency.
Though the letter Gaglione received said Joey would have a chance to register soon, she said it’s unclear if that has yet happened. She recently learned, to her surprise, that Joey had been previously registered to vote upon applying for a state ID, though she is working to get that changed now that a probate judge has ruled him incompetent.
Meanwhile, Gershon said she and other advocates are watching carefully to see how the state enforces the processes the Secretary of the State’s office laid out in its recent memo. They’re intent on extending voting rights to any and all eligible adults.
“Evaluating Connecticut in terms of its implementation of this opinion is ongoing,” Gershon said.
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