For those who didn't know....Germany has a law that says if you are under court-ordered supervision (meaning that you sit in a facility), then you are considered 'disabled', and one of the end-results of that label....is that you don't have the right to vote. This law has been on the books for years and years, and rarely got any attention or public statements.
Mental cases, people who were paranoid schizophrenic, or people considered a threat to themselves or others....ended up under this court-ordered situation.
Well, it's finally attracted attention, and some folks have openly challenge this in court....demanding that the group (roughly 80,000 in number) be given the right to vote.
The court system finally came up in January and said 'enough'....ordering the Bundestag to write a change to the law. Oddly enough, in roughly 60 days, the CDU and SPD folks had a regulation written into draft form, and it will likely be finalized in July. Too late to affect the May EU election, but likely to have some influence to the three state elections in the fall.
It came out in the past couple of days that a major push is going on....to challenge the courts to stand up and demand the 'rights' occur now, and include the 80,000 in the May EU election.
How would the disabled group vote, if this were opened up? That's a virtual unknown. Some probably are not mentally prepared for this moment, and one might suspect that a large percentage will just turn and ask their chief nurse who to support.
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