Skip to main content

Verified by Psychology Today

Politics

Voter Fraud and the Mentally Disabled

Were mentally disabled Minnesotans "coached" to vote for certain candidates?

In a Minnesota polling station, a voter claims to have seen mentally disabled adults being coerced to vote for certain candidates.

According to FoxNews:

"Montgomery Jensen, a voter in Crow Wing County, says he and his wife saw a group of mentally incapacitated individuals ushered through the voting process by mental health staff, who told some of the group who they should vote for and, in some cases, filled out ballots on their behalf," according to an affidavit filed with the county attorney's office yesterday.

"Jensen suggested that the county officials processing the ballots were aware that some had been cast by mentally incapacitated people who may not be legally eligible to vote."

Allegations of voter fraud have been trickling in throughout the runup to the midterms; that trickle will soon become a flood. Past allegations have involved votes apparently having been cast by dead people, felons, and pets, as well as homeless people being paid to vote multiple times at different polling stations. This is the first allegation I've heard involving the mentally disabled.

"Jensen, who identified himself in the affidavit as a disabled veteran, said that he and his wife arrived at the county auditor's office shortly before 5 p.m. on Friday afternoon and saw a large crowd of people who appeared mentally incapacitated, some of whom he thought might not be eligible to vote: 'I was just puzzled because the individuals had no idea that they were at the courthouse, let alone they were there to vote,' Jensen alleges in the affidavit.

"He said he and his wife witnessed 'what appeared to be a staff member from a facility trying to coerce a mentally incapacitated individual back to the voting booth to vote without success, so the staff member proceeded to fill out the ballot without the mentally incapacitated voter.'

"After that, Jensen said, he saw the staff member direct the 'mentally incapacitated voter' across the room to cast his vote with county auditors.

"'I overhead the same staff member with a different mentally incapacitated voter vocally instructing him which candidates to select,' Jensen stated in the affidavit. 'After I overheard this, I looked over and seen the staff member physically filling in the ballot.'"

"He also described a county auditor's office employee struggling to take a ballot out of the hand of one of the voters.

"'He had no idea where he was, let alone that he was voting for future elected offices,' the affidavit reads."

Are there any laws denying adults to vote based on diminished mental capacity?

advertisement
More from S. Rufus
More from Psychology Today