On Monday night, The Iowa Standard was told about a concern related to absentee voting at a nursing home in Iowa.
An individual was visiting their parent in the nursing home and saw a letter in their parent’s room stating that the absentee ballot request had been received and would be delivered on Oct. 22 by a “bipartisan” team.
This resident, though, had never lived in the county until moving to the nursing home. And the children of the resident did not change the parent’s voter registration for various reasons.
However, this year, an employee of the nursing home asked the resident if they would like an absentee ballot. This particular resident has dementia and, a couple of years ago when asked who the President was, responded John F. Kennedy.
According to the letter, the “team members” were going to remain with the resident while they voted. They would not watch the resident mark the ballot unless asked for assistance. After voting, the team members would return the ballot to the auditor’s office.
The adult child of the resident said it was disturbing to see the letter. And when staff was confronted, the staff simply said it is the resident’s right to vote.
According to the local auditor, a Republican and Democrat representative would be with the resident when voting to answer any questions.
The staff member reportedly asked if the resident is a Democrat or a Republican, to which the adult child said they weren’t sure. The indication was that if the resident responded they were a Democrat or a Republican, then the helper would fill out the ballot for all Democrats or all Republicans — depending on the information provided.
The staff member told the adult child of the resident power of attorneys cannot vote for her, but the adult child said they should have been consulted before their parent was asked to vote.
“Four years ago when (the parent) was a little more competent we didn’t have (them) vote because we didn’t feel (they) could make an informed decision,” the individual told The Iowa Standard.
The Iowa Standard asked the county auditor how it can be certain one of the individuals is a Republican on the “bipartisan” team and one is a Democrat, but we were told they can’t be sure. They are only going off voter registration information. Also, people with dementia are allowed to vote as long as a court hasn’t declared them mentally incompetent to do so. And very few individuals with dementia have been declared mentally incompetent to vote, they said.
This has led the adult child of the resident to now believe there is indeed voter fraud across the country if this sort of practice is allowed.
“I have thought the government always told the truth and I thought there was no such thing as fraud,” they told The Iowa Standard. “Well, this just kind of opened up my eyes.”
