Nursing home residents face barriers to voting amid the COVID-19 pandemic. 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 might not get the opportunity to vote.
Older Americans are some of the most reliable voters. Nursing home residents, however, face voting challenges, even in normal times. They are encountering even greater barriers this election season. In response to the coronavirus pandemic, many nursing homes have prohibited family and friends from visiting residents. There may also be restrictions that prevent residents from leaving the facilities. As a result, residents may not be able to leave to vote or get help filling out mail-in ballots.
In past years, nursing homes and assisted living facilities often acted as polling places. However, this year, many polling place have been moved due to the pandemic. In the past, some states allowed nonpartisan organizations to enter nursing homes to assist residents with their ballots. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether organizational assistance will be allowed this year. Some states specifically prohibit nursing home staff from assisting residents with their ballots. In states that don’t explicitly prohibit staff assistance, nursing home staff are likely to be overworked and may not have the time to help residents fill out their ballots.
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,”
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