The Right to Vote
This is one very hot topic. It ranks right up there with drinking alcohol in a facility. Who can vote or who is allowed to vote? The 15th Amendment gives every citizen in this country the right to vote. The 19th amendment was ratified in 1920 to give women the right to vote.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/19th-amendment.
It is a lot of work to get residents signed up to vote in a facility. You must figure out who is registered and who isn’t, who wants to be registered and who could care less. Then there are the ones that will only vote during a presidential election. Then there are the primary elections in which you must declare a party. A lot of older folks do not want to tell anyone what party they are affiliated with. Now if that is not enough, you have residents that have a dementia diagnosis or that are an award of the court and have a guardian. Every state has different rules that govern voting. This link https://www.usa.gov/state-election-office allows you to search each state for the rules on voting.
gives you information about guardianship and voting.
I have had staff tell me that so and so should not be allowed to vote since they don’t even know where their room is. I’ve also been told that if a resident can’t sign their own name they shouldn’t be allowed to vote. I’ve heard so many reasons why they should not be allowed to vote. One of my clients has a guardian due to being unable to handle money or take their medications correctly. The state of Ohio does allow individuals with guardians to vote if the guardian feels they can understand what it is to vote. It was coming up to election time, and she asked me if I had made sure she was registered to vote. She had moved from one state to another and knew enough to ask me if I had moved her voting rights. I assured her I had. She asked me this in front of one of the aides that takes care of her. The aide said to me in front of my client, she shouldn’t be allowed to vote with her memory issues. My response back was, she knows who she wants to vote for, and she knows she must be registered. She is legally allowed to vote. I have another client that also has dementia and wanted to make sure she got a chance to vote. She also made it very clear who she was voting for and wanted to make sure that I had her information corrected.
I took both ladies to the voting office for early voting. When we got there, I had to help both sign of them with their ballot. Neither one of them could remember their new address, they both looked at me and asked for their address. Once they got their ballots, they needed help filling in the little oval. One of my clients even needed the ballet read to her because she has cataracts and couldn’t see what the ballet said. She did know exactly who she wanted to vote for.
I always try to ask my residents when they come into my facility if they are registered voters. If they are, I have a voter form that I can have them fill out with an address change. I also keep up with my residents that have a change in condition that may affect their ability to write. If they can no longer sign their names, they are allowed to put an X on the signature line as long as there are two witnesses that sign the form verifying it is their signature. I was taught early on that if you do this, you should always have both a Democrat and a Republican verify the signature. This is something I always make sure I do. This also holds true if you have a resident that is voting absentee. When they get their ballot, make sure there are two witnesses helping to fill the ballet out if help is needed and it needs to be a Democrat and a Republican that help.
Voting has always been a huge deal in every facility I have ever worked in. The Board of Elections would send out two volunteers to facilities so they could help residents vote. We would set up the activity room or dining room like a voting station and volunteers from the board of elections would help the residents fill out their ballots or if they were able to fill it out themselves, they would set them up at a “booth”. One of the residents was a gold star mother. She had lost several families members while on active duty. She also had a diagnosis of dementia and was legally blind. She always made sure that I had her down to vote. When Mrs. Smith came down to vote she wasn’t sure who to vote for, only that she needed to vote. She would have the ballot read to her, she would say, “don’t mark anything, I don’t know who to vote for.” She would sign that she voted and get her “I voted” sticker and tell everyone she had done her civic duty. One aid said that is a waste of time and paper. It is not a waste of time and paper. I would rather she not fill it out and sign the form than be told she can’t vote because she doesn’t know who to vote for. The residents would wear those “I voted” stickers like a badge of honor.
The only time I did not sign a resident up to vote was if they had no clue what was going or family would tell me that they wanted their loved one to vote but the resident did not understand what was going on or they refused to vote. There were a few that would tell me they weren’t sure if they wanted to vote and would make their minds up later. I would explain that they needed to fill out the absentee ballot so they could have that option later. If you do not fill out the absentee ballot there will be no choice later, unless they were able to be taken to the voting polls.
I did work in a facility that wanted to go to the polls. I just had to make sure before we went that they had a valid I.D. to present at the voting station. Make sure you know what is needed if you have residents that want to go to the polls. You can find that out by calling your local Board of Elections to see what the protocol is for voting in person. I would also keep a list of registered voters in my office to make sure that I didn’t miss anyone at election time. It would take me an entire day to get absentee ballots filled out and turned in, but the look on their faces when they lined up to vote was priceless. It made them feel like they had a say in what was going on around them.
Submitted by Tammy Point
