Protecting our Vulnerable Residents

It is important to ensure the votes of Pennsylvania’s vulnerable citizens are protected and counted fairly. Here are a few key points from our Senior Citizen Voting Bill of Rights that outline what vulnerable voters can and should expect from our election systems.

• The right to vote OR not to vote. The choice is the residents and the residents alone.
• The right to refuse assistance from person/s they do not want help from. Many political operatives are active in senior communities and have been known to manipulate or change votes.
• The right to privacy. No one should be asking residents about their personal voting preferences or making a recommendation. Voting is strictly confidential.
• The right to redress if the resident feels their rights have been violated. Reports should be made to the local election authority.
• The resident has a right to request candidates from all political parties visit their community to hear their concerns and for candidates to explain their policy positions.

A resident has the right to participate as much or as little as they want to in the election process, and they should be protected from those who may wish to suppress their free choices.

Protecting Your Long-Term Care Facility During Elections

It is important for Pennsylvania residential communities to perform a self-assessment to protect the voting rights of residents and protect the staff and facility from legal issues and bad publicity.  Asking the following questions may be helpful in identifying any vulnerabilities.

• Am I providing quality training to staff regarding adherence to state and federal election laws?
• Does my facility have unmonitored assistance with ballot requests or submissions?
• Are there non-government organizations entering my facility to assist residents with any aspect of the voting process?
• Are there ballot requests and/or ballot submissions of residents with dementia and/or other mental impairments?
• Are there non-government organizations approaching my staff with requests to fill out residents’ ballots?
• Do I have good management oversight of all aspects of the voting process, including secure chain-of-custody of mail-in ballots?

Once residential directors have identified any facility vulnerabilities, it is important to implement policies and procedures to protect the residents, staff, and facility. It is crucial to educate staff on state and federal voting laws, as well as criminal penalties for vote fraud. Directors can be held responsible for staff failure to comply with the law.

Long-term care facility directors are responsible for:

• Properly following ballot assistance laws.
• Knowing which residents are “non compos mentis” and ensuring state and federal voting laws are followed for these individuals. Staff should not mark ballots for residents who cannot express their wish to vote in the election or freely express their preferred candidate.
• Enacting protocols to protect residents from possible vote suppression and fraud.
• Teaching staff that it is never “ok” to tell a resident for whom to vote.
• Protecting staff from outside groups that offer financial compensation for ballot trafficking.
• Creating systems – which are carefully monitored– to protect the chain of custody of ballots.
• Discussing with staff how to protect absentee ballots from ballot harvesters/traffickers and create systems to protect your residents’ ballots to ensure they securely get to the election authorities.
• Establishing training programs to teach staff what constitutes vote suppression and fraud and create policies to prevent these crimes at your facility.

Long-term care facilities have an important role in protecting voting rights. Only with continued strong leadership will the residents, staff, and facility be safe from actions, whether inadvertent or deliberate, that violate state and federal laws.

To request further practical resources, including the Pennsylvania legal guide, email a request to Laura.Williams@CenterForVulnerableVoters.org.