Germany

Table of Contents:

• Exclusion or Potential Exclusion Based on Disability
• Assistive Tools and Policies

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Section 13 states:

A person shall be disqualified from voting if  …

• (2) a custodian has been appointed not only through a restraining order to attend to all his or her affairs...
• (3) he  or  she is accommodated in a psychiatric hospital  under  an  order  pursuant to Section 63 of the Penal Code in conjunction with Section 20 of the Penal Code.

Section 14 states:

• (5) Persons eligible to vote who are illiterate or prevented by a disability from casting their vote may avail themselves of another person's assistance for that purpose. Such support shall be limited to practical assistance in communicating an electoral decision that has been taken and expressed by the person eligible to vote. Such assistance is inadmissible in cases where an abusive influence is exercised while it is rendered, where it replaces or alters the self-determined opinion-forming or decision taken by the person eligible to vote, or where there is a conflict of interests for the person rendering assistance.

Excerpt from the Federal Elections Act (1993, last amended 2013)

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Section 33, subsection 2 states:

A voter who is illiterate or who due to a physical handicap is prevented from marking the ballot paper, from folding it, or from placing it into the ballot box himself or herself may be aided by another person.

 

Section 36, subsection 2 states:

The voter or the person assisting him or her [by postal ballot] must indicate on the polling card that he or she gives an assurance in lieu of an oath to the Constituency Returning Officer that the ballot paper has been marked either personally or in accordance with the declared intent of the voter...

 

Section 50, subsection 4 states:

The Federal Government shall reimburse the Associations of the Blind who have expressed their willingness to produce ballot paper templates for the necessary expenditures arising from the production and distribution of the ballot paper templates.

 

Excerpts from the Federal Elections Act (1993, last amended 2013)