Skip to content Skip to search

Republish This Story

* Please read before republishing *

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free under an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives Creative Commons license as long as you follow our republishing guidelines, which require that you credit The 19th and retain our pixel. See our full guidelines for more information.

To republish, simply copy the HTML at right, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to The 19th. Have questions? Please email [email protected].

— The Editors

Loading...

Modal Gallery

/
Sign up for our newsletter

Menu

  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships
    • From the Collection

      Changing Child Care

      Illustration of a woman feeding a baby a bottle
      • 1 in 4 parents report being fired for work interruptions due to child care breakdowns

        Chabeli Carrazana · February 2
      • Washington, D.C., offers financial relief to local child care workers

        Orion Rummler · September 20
      • As climate change worsens hurricane season in Louisiana, doulas are ensuring parents can safely feed their babies

        Jessica Kutz · May 5
    • From the Collection

      Next-Gen GOP

      Illustration of a woman riding an elephant
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • A banner year for Republican women

        Amanda Becker · November 11
      • Republican women could double representation in the U.S. House

        Amanda Becker · November 4
    • From the Collection

      On The Rise

      Illustration of three women marching
      • Can Cheri Beasley build a winning coalition in North Carolina?

        Candice Norwood · October 11
      • Los Angeles has never elected a woman mayor. Karen Bass hopes to change that.

        Nadra Nittle · September 8
      • Judge J. Michelle Childs is confirmed to D.C. appeals court

        Candice Norwood · July 20
    • From the Collection

      Pandemic Within a Pandemic

      Illustration of four people marching for Black Lives Matter with coronavirus as the backdrop
      • Some LGBTQ+ people worry that the COVID-19 vaccine will affect HIV medication. It won’t.

        Orion Rummler · November 23
      • Why are more men dying from COVID? It’s a complicated story of nature vs. nurture, researchers say

        Mariel Padilla · September 22
      • Few incarcerated women were released during COVID. The ones who remain have struggled.

        Candice Norwood · August 17
    • From the Collection

      Portraits of a Pandemic

      Illustration of a woman wearing a mask and holding up the coronavirus
      • For family caregivers, COVID is a mental health crisis in the making

        Shefali Luthra · October 8
      • A new database tracks COVID-19’s effects on sex and gender

        Shefali Luthra · September 15
      • Pregnant in a pandemic: The 'perfect storm for a crisis'

        Shefali Luthra · August 25
    • From the Collection

      The 19th Explains

      People walking from many articles to one article where they can get the context they need on an issue.
      • The 19th Explains: What we know about Brittney Griner’s case and what it took to get her home

        Candice Norwood, Katherine Gilyard · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why the Respect for Marriage Act doesn’t codify same-sex marriage rights

        Kate Sosin · December 8
      • The 19th Explains: Why baby formula is still hard to find months after the shortage

        Mariel Padilla · December 1
    • From the Collection

      The Electability Myth

      Illustration of three women speaking at podiums
      • Mayra Flores’ victory set a record for women in Congress. It also reflects the growing visibility of Republican Latinas

        Candice Norwood · June 21
      • Stepping in after tragedy: How political wives became widow lawmakers

        Mariel Padilla · May 24
      • Do term limits help women candidates? New York could be a new testing ground

        Barbara Rodriguez · January 11
    • From the Collection

      The Impact of Aging

      A number of older people walking down a path of information.
      • From ballroom dancing to bloodshed, the older AAPI community grapples with gun control

        Nadra Nittle, Mariel Padilla · January 27
      • 'I'm planning on working until the day I die': Older women voters are worried about the future

        Mariel Padilla · June 3
      • Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders

        Jessica Kutz · May 31
    • From the Collection

      Voting Rights

      A series of hands reaching for ballots.
      • Connecticut voters approved early voting. Here’s how their new secretary of state wants to make it happen.

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 13
      • Women lawmakers in Minnesota are in the vanguard of the democracy movement

        Barbara Rodriguez · February 3
      • Election workers believe in our system — and want everyone else to, too

        Barbara Rodriguez, Jennifer Gerson · November 8

    View all collections

  • Explore by Topic

    • 19th Polling
    • Abortion
    • Business & Economy
    • Caregiving
    • Coronavirus
    • Education
    • Election 2020
    • Election 2022
    • Election 2024
    • Environment & Climate
    • Health
    • Immigration
    • Inside The 19th
    • Justice
    • LGBTQ+
    • Military
    • Politics
    • Press Release
    • Race
    • Sports
    • Technology

    View All Topics

Home
  • Our Mission
  • Our Team
  • Latest Stories
  • Search
  • Upcoming Events
  • Contact Us
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Work With Us
  • Fellowships

We’re an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy. Read our story.

The 19th Represents Summit

Don’t miss our biggest event of 2023!

Register Today

Become a member

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

An election worker moves returned ballots from a sorting machine behind at the King County Elections office Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2020, in Renton, Wash. Election officials there said that 280,000 county ballots had already been returned, nearly 20% of the total sent to voters. Washington state is one of five states, along with Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, and Utah, that conduct elections entirely by mail-in voting. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Voters living in nursing homes will be impacted by the coronavirus, with many opting for mail-in voting. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Election 2020

Pandemic restrictions may impact the nursing home vote

Women account for more than two-thirds of the nursing home population, which faces challenges to voting due to various changes prompted by the pandemic.

Mariel Padilla

General Assignment Reporter

Mariel Padilla portrait

Published

2020-10-27 08:00
8:00
October 27, 2020
am

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

We’re going to get you through this election. Sign up for our daily newsletter. 

Penny Shaw said her shoulder muscles wouldn’t allow her to reach up to access a ballot drop box. So the 77-year-old opted to ride her power chair to the post office, six blocks from her Massachusetts nursing home, to drop off her absentee ballot. 

“I’ve managed to vote in every state and national election, except when I was on life support,” said Shaw, who has lived at the nursing home for nearly 19 years. 

The 19th thanks our sponsors. Become one.

Shaw lives in a small town with a population of about 35,000. Everything she needs, from the town hall to the post office, is within eight blocks of her nursing home. Because of the pandemic, the town reduced the number of polling places by half, but luckily she was still close enough to mail her ballot, she said. 

“I decided to get out of my building to vote, but other people can’t,” Shaw said. 

Of the 1.3 million nursing home residents in the United States, about half a million have no or mild cognitive impairment and are more likely to vote, according to Nina Kohn, a law professor at Syracuse University and a scholar in elder law at Yale Law School. But nursing home advocates and experts are concerned that thousands upon thousands of nursing home residents may not be able to vote due to increased restrictions under the pandemic, understaffing and the spread of misinformation. 

More than two-thirds of the nursing home population are women and about 90 percent of nursing home aides are women. Around 84,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States have been reported among residents and employees of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to a New York Times database. This figure accounts for nearly 40 percent of the country’s coronavirus deaths, emphasizing how fatal this disease is for older Americans with underlying health conditions.

Stories by experienced reporters you can trust and relate to.

Delivered directly to your inbox every weekday.

Please check your email to confirm your subscription!

Submitting…

Uh-oh! Something went wrong. Please try again later.

At the same time, older Americans are the most politically engaged demographic in the country. In 2018, more than 65 percent of women older than 65 voted, compared with just 38 percent those between 18 and 29 years old. 

Kohn said nursing homes are required to help residents access the ballot — even during a pandemic. 

“Facilities have an obligation under federal law to assist residents who wish to vote, but short staffing and other challenges we’re seeing amid COVID-19 lead to concern that this support may not ensure that residents can, in fact, vote,” Kohn said. 

But when it comes to oversight, many surveyors — who conduct annual inspections of every Medicare and Medicaid-certified nursing home in the country — fail to investigate disenfranchisement on a systemic level, Kohn said. Most citations are the result of resident complaints, which makes it hard to track how many residents are actually being denied the right to vote. 

These long-term care facilities face extra challenges this year.

“We don’t really know what’s going on in nursing homes right now,” Kohn said. “Ombudsmen, who are the eyes and ears of the public for nursing home residents, by and large aren’t going into these facilities. We have a terrible problem of invisible suffering in these facilities.” 

We have a terrible problem of invisible suffering in these facilities.

Nina Kohn, law professor at Syracuse University

On October 5, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — the government agency that administers the nation’s major health care programs — issued a memo reminding nursing home facilities that they were required to uphold residents’ right to vote despite COVID-19.

“Nursing homes should have a plan to ensure residents can exercise their right to vote, whether in-person, by mail, absentee or other authorized process,” according to the memo. 

Many families and friends that may have once helped nursing home residents in the past might be banned from coming into the facilities due to public health concerns. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommended relocating polling locations from nursing homes, long-term care facilities and senior living residences, or places where at-risk people live. 

Alexa Schoeman, a deputy state ombudsman in Texas, said all in-person visits to nursing homes were restricted in March. But ombudsmen in the state slowly started to resume facility visits at the end of August and helped facilities plan for the 2020 election.

Schoeman is a part of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, which is authorized by the Older Americans Act and operates in all 50 states to ensure that nursing home residents have someone to advocate for them, address their complaints and educate them about their rights. 

“It’s always important to remember that just because someone is moving into a nursing home doesn’t mean that their right to vote is taken away,” Schoeman said. 

Robyn Grant, the director of public policy and advocacy at the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, an advocacy group, said she was “extremely concerned” because without outside community help, many residents are forced to rely entirely on their nursing homes to vote, she said. 

“In some states, there are prohibitions on staff helping residents,” Grant said. “I think that adds another layer of complexity to this.” 

For example, a 2013 law in North Carolina prohibits nursing home employees from “providing assistance with absentee voting.” 

In addition, Grant said there is not enough staffing to meet resident needs. There was already a shortage before the pandemic, but now, even more staff members are out sick, required to self isolate in their homes or afraid to go to work because they don’t want to risk the health of their families. 

False claims and misinformation being spread about mail-in voting  — often from the President Donald Trump — also poses a special risk to nursing home residents, many of whom are unable to physically go to the polls. Mail-in voting has worked successfully before the pandemic, and many experts agree it is safe and reliable. Suggesting otherwise threatens to disenfranchise older adults, particularly those with disabilities and those living in institutions, Kohn said. 

“Mail-in voting makes it possible for many people to vote who otherwise wouldn’t,” Kohn said. “It helps ensure that we don’t impose unnecessary cost on certain populations. And when you cast false assertions on the validity of this process, it really affects older adults.” 

The disenfranchisement of the nursing home population, which accounts for about 4.5 percent of all older adults, could have a real impact.

“At a national level, it doesn’t seem like it would have a major impact, but I certainly think there is the possibility when you look at state and local levels,” Grant said. “If you take an area where there is a large population of older adults, I think at that point it could impact the outcome of a close race.” 

Share

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Email

The 19th Represents Summit

Don’t miss our biggest event of 2023!

Register Today

Become a member

From the Collection

The Impact of Aging

A number of older people walking down a path of information.
  • From ballroom dancing to bloodshed, the older AAPI community grapples with gun control

    Nadra Nittle, Mariel Padilla · January 27
  • 'I'm planning on working until the day I die': Older women voters are worried about the future

    Mariel Padilla · June 3
  • Climate change is forcing care workers to act as first responders

    Jessica Kutz · May 31

Up Next

Missouri gubernatorial candidates, Gov. Mike Parson, and State Auditor Nicole Galloway are seen onstage before the Missouri gubernatorial debate at the Missouri Theatre on Friday, Oct. 9, 2020 in Columbia, Missouri. (Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP, Pool)

Election 2020

Nicole Galloway wants to be Missouri’s first female governor

The race “leans” Republican, but Democrats believe the state auditor is their best chance to pick up a governorship this year.

Read the Story

The 19th
The 19th is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Our stories are free to republish in accordance with these guidelines.

  • Donate
  • Newsletter
  • Events
  • Search
  • Jobs
  • Fellowships
  • Contact Us
  • About Us
  • Community Guidelines
  • Membership
  • Membership FAQ
  • Major Gifts
  • Sponsorship
  • Privacy
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram