SOCIAL JUSTICE BLOG
Read and share the extraordinary stories from the frontlines of social change
Can Britney Vote?
The plight of Britney Spears, the pop star who has been under a conservatorship for the past 13 years, has plastered the news headlines recently. While even a quick skimmer of the Britney saga suggests the potential for financial abuse, like how much she pays the people who continue to benefit from her conservatorship, and restrictions on her reproductive rights such as whether she can stop using birth control, we don’t know if Ms. Spears can vote. If she is like thousands of other people whose voting rights are curtailed through a court-ordered guardianship (called conservatorship in California), she may have been disenfranchised without any consideration of whether she in fact remains capable of voting. Categorical bans on voting by people subject to guardianship or conservatorship exist in at least a dozen states and may be ripe for legal challenge.
Ohio Voting Rights Case For Pretrial Detainees Erupts Out Of 2018 Midterms
Ohio, like many states, has a system that allows people who experience unforeseen hospitalization or other medical emergencies to request, receive, and cast absentee ballots, even if their emergency took place after the normal absentee ballot request deadline. However, despite the constitutional presumption of innocence, the same provision is not available to voters arrested after the deadline. These voters, have not been convicted of any crime, are similarly unable to reach the polls on Election Day, yet they are denied access to the emergency voting procedure.