Portugal

Table of Contents:

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

Back to Top

Article 2 states:

The following are not eligible to vote:

• a) Persons who are barred by a sentence that has transited in rem judicatam; 
• b) Persons who are clearly acknowledged to be demented, even if they are not barred by a sentence, when they are committed to a psychiatric establishment or are declared to be demented by a medical board composed of two doctors; 
• c) Persons who are deprived of political rights by a judicial decision that has transited in rem judicatam.

 

Excerpt from the Assembly of the Republic Electoral Law (1979, last amended 2011)

Back to Top

Article 79-A states:

The following may vote early:…

• d) Electors who are or presumably will be hospital in-patients and unable to travel to the polling station or section due to illness…

 

Article 97 states:

1. An elector who is affected by an obvious illness or physical disability and whose inability to undertake the acts described in Article 96 is verified by the board of officers, shall vote while accompanied by another elector of his choice, who shall ensure that his vote is cast as he intends it to be and who shall be bound to absolute secrecy.

2. If the board of officers decides that that the obviousness of the illness or physical disability is not verified, they shall require presentation to them, upon the act of voting, of a certificate confirming that it is impossible for the elector to undertake the acts described in the previous Article, to be issued by the doctor who exercises public health authority powers in the municipality’s area and to be authenticated with the respective department’s seal…

 

Article 150 states:

Anyone who accompanies a blind or disabled person to vote and maliciously expresses the latter’s wish in a manner that is not faithful thereto shall be punished by a prison term of between six months and two years and a fine of between five thousand and twenty thousand escudos.

 

Excerpts from the Assembly of the Republic Electoral Law (1979, last amended 2011)