Patients and voting

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Specializes in Education, Acute, Med/Surg, Tele, etc.

I overheard something that disturbed me highly today, and I wanted to let you all know about it, and possible ways to stop it from happening. My story is from an assisted living (geri) point of view...but I am sure it would span across many patients!

Today I was going over MAR's when I overheard a patient and their son. My patient is a sweet, but VERY confused older gent who couldn't tell you the day, let alone the year to save his life. In fact I even asked him a few weeks ago who the current President of the US is..he couldn't tell me at all!

Well the son was asking his father where his ballot for the vote was..and that caught my ear! I was thinking "yeah right, he can't vote...he doesn't even know what season we are in!"...so I listened! The son wanted his father to sign the envelope and he said "don't worry dad..I will fill yours and mom's out for you". Again, my interest peaked...(the mother is more so confused, and in a progressive care unit (lock down). Then I realized...he was going to get their ballots and vote for HIMSELF 3 times! Okay...this struck me as 100% wrongo!!!!!!

So the son couldn't find the ballot and went off to the administration and gave them lip about the resident wanting to vote and being denied. Well the admin gave the son the ballot right then and there, mothers too. I was floored! And off he went, to get mom/dad's signatures so he can cast his vote on thier ballots!

I spoke to my admin saying "oh come on! He had them sign their envelopes so he could vote...both residents don't even know the current President, date or season..how can they vote!" Then my admin's light bulb came on..."oh crud! But then again, I am not the voting police, what could I do". I agreed with her...neither am I really either. But this is WRONG!

Subtile but in my oppinion a total abuse of my residents! And I say it is beyond wrong! You don't exploit someone with dementia or perhaps some congnitive disablity like this...or even someone on heavy narcotics! Abuse plain and simple!

My admin is going to talk with the State Voting Commision and see what can be done. I can not give the name of the son who took them because I would have had to look in the charts which is confidential information. So I will leave this for the admin to handle...but I am so mad!

What do you guys think? What can be done? Can we dare to challenge a vote of someone that may not be in the right mind to do so? How many folks get their rights messed with by this? How much can it change the outcome (considering the elderly do vote in large numbers)?

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Specializes in CNA: LTC & DD.

I live in Oregon as well and I think this is just awful! Maybe people are desperate for their candidate to win, but it's still just shameful. I'm absolutely stunned that this even happened.

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Many states has laws on the books that clearly state that anyone determined to be mentally incopetent can not vote. It is probably too late to stop the vote from being counted but in the future voter registration should be informed when they send ballots out to incopetent residents.

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Specializes in Education, Acute, Med/Surg, Tele, etc.

Thank you very much for your reponses. I thought I may be a little touchy about this, but for some reason my mind just wasn't dealing with this well. A bit of the old "voting is a privalage" thing..and I didn't like seeing it abused like this.

I wonder who determines who can and can not vote in these types of situations? Because I have quite a few folks with ballots that would proably vote for "purple monkey dishwasher" on something!

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Specializes in Oncology/Haemetology/HIV.
Thank you very much for your reponses. I thought I may be a little touchy about this, but for some reason my mind just wasn't dealing with this well. A bit of the old "voting is a privalage" thing..and I didn't like seeing it abused like this.

I wonder who determines who can and can not vote in these types of situations?

This actually is a major problem in many places, Florida being one. Do you want to be the judge that lists people as being legally "incompetent"....you would find yourself being booted in a heartbeat. But should people be "helping" them vote. There are people that routinely go to Nursing homes to "help" people vote, some with good intentions, some with bad.

The Elections personnel have a wretched job dealing with this.

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