Wählen mit Behinderung?

Voting law is subject to constant change, yet the participation of people with disabilities long remained a marginal issue in politics. For decades, the system relied on a workaround that equated political maturity with the civil legal capacity of persons with disabilities. The Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) ended this practice in 2019 by declaring the voting rights exclusion under § 13 No. 2 BWahlG (old version) to be unconstitutional. The legislature responded: instead of creating new barriers, it established legal inclusion by expanding voting assistance and strengthening the protection of electoral secrecy. Eric Böttner examines whether the legislature, through this legal inclusion, has also achieved actual inclusion in practice.