EDITORIAL - When voting should no longer be allowed

A photograph in a local newspaper showed a woman in her mid-nineties being carried in a wheelchair up a steep flight of stairs to her polling precinct. From how she looked in the photograph, the woman seemed neither fit nor interested to vote.

But because the law allows people like her to be assisted when voting, her vote can easily be cast for her by whoever is assisting her. In the photograph, the woman was carried up the steep flight of stairs by a group of people, presumably her relatives, anyone of whom can assist her in voting.

The photograph brings to the fore a very disturbing reality rooted in the way elections are being done in this country. Was the woman being taken to vote, despite the obvious risks and inconvenience, out of a deep regard for her civic obligation, or was it for something else?

The photograph was shown around to several people for comment and the unanimous observation was that the woman (with apologies to what might be her real disposition) looked like she was not even aware of what was going on or where she was being taken.

The woman looked too old and frail and helpless for anyone who saw the photograph to ascribe to her the slightest desire to be moved or even touched. Yet there she was, almost all skin and bones, precariously seated on her wheelchair without any restrainer, being carried up a steep flight of stair to vote.

For that one vote, for whom she clearly was not aware of and couldn't care less even if she knew, the woman who otherwise required ample care, comfort and protection at home, if not in a hospital, was instead having her physical and mental well-being put in very serious and irresponsible jeopardy.

Very clearly there should be a limit, such as age or physical fitness, to the exercise of civic duty. The photograph, if ever they saw it, should challenge lawmakers to craft a law to put such a limitation in place, not to disenfranchise a voter, but to protect his or her own well-being.

Aside from protection for health reasons, very old and very frail citizens should also be protected from exploitation. In this day and age when every vote counts in an election, and candidates are willing to get that one vote by whatever means, it does not take genius to see how exploitation enters the picture.