Ensuring that every person may exercise his right to vote is a noble government function. Absentee voting enables those with time or geographic limitations to make their voices heard. Here in Illinois, the state provides special early voting procedures in certain assisted living centers. I had the opportunity to observe the early ballot casting in such a facility this past week.
The majority of residents at this particular health facility are incapable of traveling even short distances unaided. Their lives demand constant care and supervision. Many of the residents suffer from dementia or other psychological ailments affecting their daily judgment and social interactions.
Each election, the State of Illinois sets up early voting in the cafeteria here. Election judges arrive, voting booths are set up, and ballots are cast. Our elders should have an opportunity, regardless of physical condition, to engage in our democracy. However, some events this morning truly disturbed me.
In ordinary precincts, the secretary of state provides the poll workers with a list of registered voters in that precinct. Each voter signs next to his name in the registry and is then granted a ballot. At this facility, the election judge encouraged facility workers to gather residents who were not yet present in the cafeteria. Providing assistance to someone lacking mobility is proper; however, in this precinct, the aim seemed to be simply increasing turnout rather than providing necessary assistance. Further observations justify this conclusion.
In the minutes leading up to the official opening, I observed the crowd which gathered. One gentleman in all sincerity informed me his name was Bill…and that he recently “traveled on a flying saucer.” Another woman walked into the cafeteria, loudly stating, “I don’t know how to vote, and I know nothing about Quinn.” Two older men in wheelchairs began antagonizing each other until a resident assistant drew them apart. A lady on the other side of the room began arguing and nearly overturned her table.
As the polling place officially opened, the election workers began calling the residents by name to the front of the room. Many of the residents failed to respond when called; these residents were then “assisted” by the health workers to the registry desk. Here, poll workers guided these barely coherent residents through the process.
Rather than allowing the resident to request assistance in the booth, as state law requires for assistance to be granted, the poll workers often would suggest that the voter obtain assistance. The residents who truly were incapable of acting alone often seemed not to understand they were casting a ballot and could not even clearly request assistance! Even residents who showed no desire to vote where encouraged to take a ballot. One lady insisted she did not wish to cast a ballot. She distinctly inquired, “Are you going to make me vote?” In the end, she too cast a ballot with the help of a nursing home worker inside the voting booth.
Strangely enough, even residents who denied the need for assistance at the ballot box were still repeatedly offered it. When an election judge agreed with a resident that no help was necessary, the facility worker looked incredulously at the judge, saying, “You’re going to let HIM vote without my help?” This pointed protest by the young health worker surprised me as this particular voter seemed exceptionally coherent and emphatic that he could vote unassisted. Another resident who denied he needed help was cajoled into changing his initial response and taking the assistance within the voting booth.
Consider that the majority nursing home workers in Chicago are part of service union organizations which overwhelmingly support Leftist candidates, the intense desire to “help” people cast their ballots becomes much more understandable. These special interests certainly may benefit from “aiding” such people at the ballot box.
When an aid worker departs with a barely cognizant voter to a ballot box, it is nearly impossible to know what is being said—if anything—at that box. A poll watcher, such as myself, must stay five feet away.
By law, the person aiding a voter is supposed to simply read the ballot and then assist the voter in marking the ballot as he makes his choices known. Why should we assume that a person who does not choose to approach the registry desk, cannot provide his full name to the poll worker, and lacks the cognizance to request assistance suddenly gains the capability to understand a ballot when read to him by an assistant at the ballot box? Why should we assume that such an assistant at the ballot box is miraculously capable of discerning this voter’s choices when poll workers are incapable of understanding the voter at the registry table?
I am in no way suggesting that ignorance, mental incapacity, or other handicap should disqualify someone from voting! I’m simply suggesting our voting system is susceptible to fraud when a person who seems to not even want a ballot, who cannot give his name to a poll worker, or who lacks the ability to even ask for assistance is given a ballot and assigned an “assistant” at the booth…an assistant who most likely aligns himself with the Democratic Party’s union interests.
For the sake of election integrity, we must rewrite the laws for voter assistance. A voter’s intent must be clear! The voter must know he is requesting such assistance and we must be able to discern such a request. If we can’t discern the request, how can an assistant in the voting booth discern the voter’s ballot choice?
It doesn’t pass the smell test.
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