General Right to Vote
Constitution:
(updated 1995)
• Section 5, subsection (1) states: "Every citizen of Tanzania who has attained the age of eighteen years is entitled to vote in any election held by the people in Tanzania…"

Exclusion Based on Mental Disability
Constitution:
(updated 1995)
• Section 5, subsection (2) states: "An Act of Parliament may provide for the disqualification of any citizen from exercising the right to vote on any of the following grounds, namely…(b) his suffering from mental infirmity… Nothing other than any of those grounds may operate to disqualify a person from exercising the right to vote."
• Section 67, subsection (1) states: "Subject to the provisions of this section, a person shall be qualified for election or appointment as a member of the National Assembly…(b) if, under any law for the time being in force in Tanzania he is adjudged to be lunatic or otherwise declared to be of unsound mind…"
Electoral Law:
(1995: Elections Act No. 1 of 1985)
• Section 11, subsection (1) states: "No person shall be qualified for registration or be registered as a voter under this Act…(b) if under any law in force in Tanzania, he is adjudged or otherwise declared to be of unsound mind or is detained as a criminal lunatic or is detained during the pleasure of the President…"

Exclusion Based on Physical Disability
Constitution:
(updated 1995)
• Section 67, subsection (1) states: "Subject to the provisions of this section, a person shall be qualified for election or appointment as a member of the National Assembly if (a) he is a citizen of the United Republic who has attained the age of twenty on years and who knows how to read and write Swahili or English…"

Voter Assistance by Other Citizens
Electoral Law:
(1995: Elections Act No. 1 of 1985)
• Section 61, subsection (3), paragraph (b) states: "if a voter is incapacitated by blindness or other physical cause…he may ask a person of his own choice other than the presiding officer, a polling assistant or a polling agent, to assist the incapacitated person to record his vote in accordance with paragraph (c) to (k) of this subsection."
Poll Worker Manuals:
Anatomy of Electoral System of Tanzania: A Guide for Candidates, Monitors, Observers and the Electorate (1995)
• Person assisting an incapacitated voter are allowed to remain in the polling station p 29
• "If a voter is incapacitated or illiterate he/she can seek assistance p 30
• One of the duties of Presiding Officer is "To explain, in the presence of the polling agents, the voting procedure to illiterate voters" p 32
Zanzibar Electoral Commission Directions for Presiding Officers 1995 (Translation)
• Responsibility of Poll Officer to escorted blind, handicapped, and illiterate voters into the booth only when necessary p 8
• Voters may come to the polling station with their own assistants, but Poll Officer makes final decision as to whether the assistant may help. P 8

Promotes Access
Poll Worker Manuals:
Instructions to Registration Assistants of Presidential and Parliamentary Elections (1995)
• Provision for illiterate: "The applicant is required to sign or put the thumb stamp if he/she does not know how to write." P 5