General Right to Vote
Electoral Law
(15 January 1992)

• See section 8, subsection (1)

Exclusion Based on Mental Disability
Constitution
(19 February 1973)

• Article 42, section (1) disqualifies from appointments as Senators any person who "...(f) is a person certified to be insane or otherwise adjudged to be of unsound mind under any law in force in the Bahamas."
• Article 48, section (1) disqualifies from membership in the House of Assembly any person who "...(e) is a person certified to be insane or otherwise adjudged to be of unsound mind under any law in force in the Bahamas."

Electoral Law
Parliamentary Elections Act
(15 January 1992)

• Section 8, subsection (3) states, "For the purposes of this Act, a person who is a patient in any establishment maintained wholly or mainly for the care of persons suffering from mental illness or mental defectiveness, or who is detained in legal custody at any place, shall not by reason thereof be treated as a resident there.”
• Under section 10 "Legal incapacities of voters," subsection (2), "a person shall be deemed to be suffering from a legal incapacity and shall not be entitled to apply for registration as a voter in any constituency or to vote at any election (whether registered as a voter or not) - ...(b) while he is deemed to be a lunatic or of unsound mind by virtue of any finding or declaration under any Act..."

Voter Assistance
Electoral Law
Parliamentary Elections Act
(15 January 1992)

• Article 55, section (1) states, “The presiding officer shall not permit the number of persons who are in the polling place at the same time for the purpose of voting to exceed the number of compartments in that polling place, and shall exclude all other persons except...(e) the friend of an incapacitated voter.”
• Article 63, section (1) states, "the presiding officer, on the application of any voter who is incapacitated by blindness or any other physical cause from voting in the manner prescribed by this act and who takes and subscribes an oath...in form O...and is accompanied by a friend, shall permit such friend to accompany the incapacitated voter into one of the compartments in the polling place and mark such voter's ballot for him, but no person shall...be allowed to act as the friend of more than one incapacitated voter."
• Under Article 59 "Voting procedure," the normal procedure includes marking the right thumb of the voter with indelible ink. However, subsection (d) of section (1) states that "if the person has no right hand thumb or if for any other reason it is...not practical to mark that thumb, the thumb of the left hand or such other finger as the presiding officer shall direct shall be so marked or if...it is not practicable to mark any finger of the person, that person shall be marked in such a way as the presiding officer considers sufficient to indicate that a ballot has been issued to that person."
• Article 59, section (4) states, “"where the appropriate finder or any other finger which any voter may be required to immerse in electoral ink is concealed or covered with any bandage or other material, the presiding officer shall refuse to give to the voter any ballet paper unless the voter either (a) removes such bandage...or...(2) satisfies the presiding officer that he is suffering from injury to such appropriate or other finger takes an oath to that effect in the prescribed form and makes one or more impressions in ink on that form, as follows (i) with his right thumb; (ii) with his left thumb, should he not have a right thumb; or (iii) with any other finger, should he not have any thumb."
• Article 63, section (2), (3), and (4) deal respectively with the oath of the friend, a list of incapacitated persons kept by the presiding officer, and a statement that any friend who breaches their oath “shall be guilty of an offence against this Act.”
•  Includes are Form O "Form of Oath to be taken by Incapacitated Voter" and Form P "Form of Oath to be taken by Friend of Incapacitated Voter"

• Constitution - http://www.bahamas.gov.bs/bahamasweb/aboutthegovernment.nsf/Subjects/The+Constitution+of+the+Bahamas
• Parliamentary Elections Act - http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Electoral/Bahamas/bahamas.html