Think about it this way. Many LGBTQ+ identites have been considered to make people “mentally unwell” (even to this day, the way stuff like being trans or asexual is talked about is… >.<). Or what about, say an autistic person who may do exceptionally well in one part of the test but fail some other parts (or even be unable to complete them).
This isn’t even starting on the issues of socioeconomic and cultural biases (which have been discussed elsewhere in depth).
The problem is “mental competency” is a pretty damn flexible concept and one that is frequently weaponised en-masse against various groups of people to strip away agency >.<, as it is often based on ideas which have primarily been from very specific perspectives, which can be malicious (see disenfranchisment of black people), or dehumanisation (see the fact that the Double Empathy Problem associated with autistic people was only really acknowledged in the past 10 years when they actually considered how their behaviour could appear from autistic people’s perspective, and only really because autistic autism researchers got some publishing and papers <.<), or simple incompetence, or any combination.
There’s many more examples of this, that I haven’t even started covering. The fact is that any “mental competency” requirement for a public office implies some kind of testing and barring process, which is ripe with all the flaws listed many times :p
Think about it this way. Many LGBTQ+ identites have been considered to make people “mentally unwell” (even to this day, the way stuff like being trans or asexual is talked about is… >.<). Or what about, say an autistic person who may do exceptionally well in one part of the test but fail some other parts (or even be unable to complete them).
This isn’t even starting on the issues of socioeconomic and cultural biases (which have been discussed elsewhere in depth).
The problem is “mental competency” is a pretty damn flexible concept and one that is frequently weaponised en-masse against various groups of people to strip away agency >.<, as it is often based on ideas which have primarily been from very specific perspectives, which can be malicious (see disenfranchisment of black people), or dehumanisation (see the fact that the Double Empathy Problem associated with autistic people was only really acknowledged in the past 10 years when they actually considered how their behaviour could appear from autistic people’s perspective, and only really because autistic autism researchers got some publishing and papers <.<), or simple incompetence, or any combination.
There’s many more examples of this, that I haven’t even started covering. The fact is that any “mental competency” requirement for a public office implies some kind of testing and barring process, which is ripe with all the flaws listed many times :p