Idiots and voting

Posted by Moonage on 08 Jan 2007 | Tagged as: Political Correctness

New Jersey is to consider cutting the word ‘idiot’ from its constitution so that people with some mental disabilities won’t be barred from voting. State Senate President Richard Codey introduced a bill Monday that would remove language from the New Jersey constitution that was designed more than 150 years ago to prevent people suffering from mental illness or handicap from casting their vote in national, state or local elections.

Codey wants to eliminate a section that says "no idiot or insane person should enjoy the right of suffrage" and substitute with a reference to "a person who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting."

What an idiot.

This is what the definition of idiot actually says: a person of the lowest order in a former classification of mental retardation, having a mental age of less than three years old and an intelligence quotient under 25.

Now, the problem I have with Codey’s thinking is that simply by using a different word, it somehow makes things better.  It doesn’t.  All it does is prove that Richard Codey has no clue what he’s talking about.  And, doesn’t care.  Although society may have generalized the term "idiot", it still has a very specific legal interpretation.  What Codey is actually doing is making it LESS clear who has the right to vote and who doesn’t.  That opens the door to judicial abuse.  We need very specific terms when dealing with a person’s right to vote.  "Idiot" is very specific. "a person who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting.." is not.  It can be too easily argued in a court of law whether any court of jurisdiction is competent or not.  A lot of judges I have written about here, are idiots.

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