Parent of Mentally Disabled Son offerred Payment to Vote in Newport Oregon

Newport News Times | Feb. 1, 2003

[oceanperch]

Parent of second Shangri-La client says son offered money to register to vote By Joel Gallob Of the News-Times The mother of a second mentally handicapped Lincoln County resident asserted this week that Shanrgi-La corporation inappropriately induced her son to register to vote on Ballot Measure 28.

She said her son, age 23, is diagnosed as autistic, and does not follow politics. She said he can read, but noted that his comprehension of what he reads is modest at best. He is, however, a whiz at Nintendo games and good with computers in general, and worked at a video store and a library before working at Shangri-La. His mother, who asked that her identity and that of her son remain anonymous, said her son's intellectual age is less than half his actual age.

The young man has been at Shangri-La for more than two years, and does the same work that Marge West - another mentally handicapp0ed Shangri-La client who was registered to vote by the social services corporation without notice to her parents - has been doing, shredding paper and bundling wood.

"He told me he would get more money because he registered," the man's mother said. "He doesn't understand the issues and can't interpret them. We've had legal guardianship of him since he was 18 because he is not legally competent.

"He was told by someone, I don't know who, on the staff that he would have more money for Nintendo games if he would register to vote," she said. "He doesn't know if it was to vote yes or no."

One or more persons at Shangri-La, she said, "must have told him to do it, and they must have filled it out for him." The mother gave two reasons for that; one is that he would not have misspelled his name the way it was misspelled on the registration form, and the other was that the young man could not, on his own, have negotiated filling out the voter registration form.

The young man did not vote, she continued, "because I called the county clerk and said I was concerned about this because I knew my son would not register without my help or knowledge." She said County Clerk Dana Jenkins pulled the registration card at her request.

She said she was given no notice of the voter registration by Shangri-La. "As his guardian, I should be participating in things like his registering to vote, and in any pay issue," she said.

Calls to Shangri-La's manager at the Newport office, and to the organization's chief executive officer in Salem were not returned as of press time Thursday.

The young man's mother added that she has called the Oregon Secretary of State's office to report what she believes is a violation of law.

The relevant piece of Oregon law, ORS 260.665, prohibits "undue influence to affect registration, voting (and) candidacy" in elections. It includes in its definition of undue influence "giving or promising to give money, employment or other thing of value."

"I do not think there was any malicious intent," said the mother, but she believes both undue influence and a failure to respect her and her husband's status as the legal guardians of the young man occurred. "Anything anybody did, they probably thought they were helping him, and were not informed of what the law was and what to do, and someone wanted to go and help them rather than finding out what the law said.

"I think there was no evil intent, but a fault of administration to not research the proper procedures in helping somebody do the right thing in following them," she concluded.

Shangri-La corporation is a private firm that provides housing for special needs individuals in Newport, Lincoln City, and Salem, as well as job-seeking and services and in-house employment to handicapped individual, under contract with the Lincoln County Department of Health and Human Services.

[skinkinthegrass]

Yeah ! Then the dimRATs will NEVER win another election :)

[Coleus]

fyi

[Jhoffa_]

"He was told by someone, I don't know who, on the staff that he would have more money for Nintendo games if he would register to vote," she said. "He doesn't know if it was to vote yes or no."

OMG (gosh)

Someone ought to be shot for this.

[nitetrax]

If you have normal intelligence, it is good that you have assistance in these matters. TBI is entirely different from autism.

My autistic son is extremely brilliant. Brilliant beyond his years. He knows things that most people don't, but he is not of normal intelligence. He has uneven intellectual development. He memorizes rather bizarre facts that interest him.

Fascinating, but ...

He would vote for the person with the best watch, or for anyone who promised him a clock -- just like this kid registered to vote so he could play more nintendo.

This isn't much different from state workers who buy life insurance for these people and then make themselves the beneficiaries. (They often pay it from the disabled person's own SSI checks too). There is widespread corruption in these programs.

It's exploitation of the disabled and it's wrong.