Voting of hospitalized and ambulatory patients with mental disorders in parliamentary elections

The authors examined the voting rate among psychiatric inpatients and the voting rate of outpatients, in relation to the severity of their illness. On Election Day the number of inpatients that voted was recorded in one psychiatric hospital in Israel. For two weeks following the elections outpatients were asked if they voted: 100/271 (36.9%) inpatients and 131/181(72.4%) ambulatory patients voted; 53.8% of the inpatients and 4.7% of the ambulatory patients could not vote because they had no identity cards. Ambulatory patients with no prior hospitalizations had the highest voting rates. The most common reason for not voting among inpatients in Israel is lack of identity cards.