For the past fifteen years, in the picturesque Berkshire County town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, famously chronicled in paintings and illustrations by Norman Rockwell, something wonderful has been quietly blooming. A growing number of women with intellectual disabilities are voting in local and national elections. And they are feeling excited and empowered.
The votes of this population alone could decide the presidential election. The 2010 Census for Americans with disabilities lists 2 million people with learning disabilities and “mental retardation,” though some respondents, who have more than one disability are counted more than once. Adding people with mental illness, and those with senility/dementia/Alzheimers brings the figure to some 6 million citizens. If they formed their own state, they’d get 10 electoral votes.
But they lack a voice. Archaic state laws and personal attitudes work against them to an alarming extent. Twenty-three states—though not Massachusetts—still name “idiots” as ineligible to vote, and all but 11 restrict voting for those under guardianship (an estimated 1 to 3 million adults, according to Psychology Today), have intellectual disabilities, or have been deemed not competent by a judge.
Parents themselves – including me, until recently—often fail to take their intellectually disabled adult children to vote. Given their limited grasp of complex issues, many of us haven’t felt right about it.
All of which makes the Stockbridge women remarkable. The women, who vary greatly in age, live at Riverbrook Residence, a gracious antique house tucked on a quiet road behind Main Street. Riverbrook is home to 21 women and provides day services for 5 more. They take their right to vote “very seriously,” says Ruth Hanley, a human rights officer. When Hanley joined the Riverbrook staff in 2001 after working for a state agency for five years, she had never heard the tern “human rights.” Under the directorship of Riverbrook’s highly dedicated executive director, Joan Burkhard, Ruth attended classes at the Department of Developmental Services (then called the Department of Mental Retardation) to learn about the rights of the disabled. After completing several courses, she became a certified human rights trainer for both staff and the disabled. She has been running training sessions to prepare the Riverbrook women to vote ever since. Now, she notes proudly, all but 2 of the 21 residents are registered. But no one has to vote, and not everyone votes in both state and national elections.
Given the stakes in this year’s presidential election, some parents are overcoming their qualms and making sure their children vote. If some of the intellectually disabled are single issue voters, well, many undiagnosed voters are too. If they are insufficiently informed, so are many voters. And the disabled have more at risk than many others do. Yet, outside of Riverbrook Residence, little seems to be happening to help these most vulnerable citizens vote. Though online information about disability voting is easily accessible, there are no signs of a movement afoot to get out their vote. Riverbrook’s commitment to its voters is unusual, if not unique. Along with a dedicated staff, Riverbrook’s residents benefit from a supportive community, and a state representative, Democrat William Smitty Pignatelli, who makes house calls. If anyone gets in the way, it tends to be parents. “You don’t have to vote,” some tell their children.
Ruth Hanley is adamant about staff not influencing the women’s votes, and she notes that the Riverbrook residents are both Republicans and Democrats.
The road to Election Day is long. Ruth begins preparing the women for the presidential election about two months ahead of time. The training sessions, which Ruth runs with Kathryn Wedderburn, a human rights coordinator, draw on such sources as Inclusion International, the bipartisan voting guides “I Have the Right to Vote,” published by the Massachusetts Department of Developmental Services, and “News for You,” published by a division of ProLiteracy, an educational nonprofit, which Ruth prints for the women. (Written at an elementary school level, “News” includes a voting vocabulary and a “Reasons to Vote” box: “You care about clean air and clean water…..You are looking for a job”—what intellectually disabled person isn’t looking for a job?) At the Riverbrook trainings, every resident is given a sample ballot and a print out with the candidates’ names, photographs, family information, party, and their position on the issues. Riverbrook staff join Ruth in answering the residents’ questions. They are not allowed to tell the women who they themselves are voting for.
Since voting can create anxiety for the women, trainings include role playing so that the women can see what will happen at the polls and how the voting process works. On Election Day, some women bring their sample ballots with them. (When my husband and I took our autistic son Randy to vote in the presidential primary, we chose a quiet time at the local polling place.) The Massachusetts law allows disabled voters physical assistance with all aspects of voting.
Outside of the training sessions Ruth encourages the women to read, watch the debates, and discuss the candidates with each other and with their families. Ruth notes that the residents tend to listen to each other more than to the staff. One highly politically engaged resident happened to be watching television when Donald J. Trump grotesquely made fun of a New York Times reporter who suffers from a disability that impairs movement in his arms. The resident was “very upset,” said Ruth, who talked with her about it. I asked whether the woman knew that Trump later denied what he’d done and if it had changed her mind. Yes, she did know, said Ruth, adding that Trump’s denials did not change her mind.” She knew what she saw,” said Ruth, adding that the woman had had “a visceral” reaction to Trump’s performance. “It struck her to the core.”
Which brings me to another point about the intellectually disabled: they are often underestimated. Randy, age 30, has trouble understanding why he should tell his parent when he leaves the house to busy himself on our 18 acres of property, but he understands death. He is a hard-working, reliable employee in both paid and volunteer jobs. If Randy does not understand what exactly is on the line in the presidential election, he knows more than he lets on.
So does Randy’s friend Josephine, the daughter of our close, longtime friends, Ann and Gary. Now 33, Josephine has lived at Riverbrook for 11 years. Though she cannot read or write, she is articulate. Blessed with an excellent bullshit meter, she can be very perceptive about people, and she tends to gravitate toward kind people. Which is why Josephine’s presidential choice is particularly interesting to me, given the candidate’s “likeability” problem: “I voted for the girl,” Josephine told her parents after the primaries.