September 9th, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic has forced nursing homes to
place a number of restrictions on their residents. These constraints are
having the unintended consequence of making it more difficult for nursing home
residents to vote. Hundreds of
thousands of nursing home and assisted living community
residents could be disenfranchised.
Older Americans are some of the most reliable voters, but
nursing home residents face challenges to voting even in normal times, and they
are encountering even greater barriers this election season. In response to the
coronavirus pandemic, nursing homes have locked down, prohibiting family and
friends from visiting residents and residents from leaving the facilities. This
means residents may not be able to leave to vote and also will not be able to
have help from family members or organizations in obtaining and filling out
mail-in ballots.
In past years, nursing homes and assisted living facilities
often acted as polling places, but many of those are being moved due to the
pandemic. In addition, nonpartisan organizations have historically been able to
enter nursing homes to assist residents with their ballots, but it is unclear
whether this will be allowed this year. North Carolina and Louisiana
specifically prohibit nursing home staff from assisting residents with their
ballots, but even in states that don’t explicitly prohibit it, overworked staff
may not have the time to help residents.
While federal law requires nursing homes to protect their
residents’ rights, including the right to vote, it is “a really open question
to what extent people in long-term care institutions are going to be able to
participate in our election in November,” says Nina Kohn, a law professor at Syracuse University
who has studied facility residents’ voting-rights issues. Kohn warns that “we should be clear that there is
tremendous reason to be concerned that nursing home residents will be . . .
systematically disenfranchised in this election,”
For more information about this issue, click here, here, and here.
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