Voting Rights Groups Step Up Criticism on VA Voting Policy

Posted by Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet at 6:30 AM on July 22, 2008.

Four influential voting rights groups Monday called for the Department of Veterans Affairs to change its voter registration policy so injured former soldiers living at VA facilities would pro-actively be helped with registering to vote and voting, instead of the current VA policy where the burden falls on vets to seek assistance.

“As a former secretary of state, I know how important it is for our veterans to be able to participate in our democracy,” said Miles Rapoport, president of Demos, one of the groups and a former Secretary of State of Connecticut. “I urge (Secretary of Veterans Affairs) James Peake to stop blocking voter registration by our vets.”

“It seems incomprehensible for me that VA does not want to assist veterans to register. It is despicable,” said Jim Dickson, vice-president of American Association of Persons with Disabilities (AAPD). “I am trying hard to not express how angry I am.”

Many injured former soldiers, like members of the public at large, do not know that they have to update their voter registration credentials whenever they move -- such as relocating to a VA campus or hospital. The four groups -- AAPD, Common Cause, Demos and the League of Women Voters -- want the VA to be like motor vehicle departments, where the public is routinely asked and helped with voter registration.

Under previous administrations, many VA facilities routinely helped patients to register and to vote, according to congressional staffers familiar with the issue's history.

The voting rights groups groups urged Peake to approve requests by top state election officials to allow voter registration efforts at VA facilities. This would be reverse Peake's May 1, 2008 decision, denying a request by California Secretary of State Debra Bowen to designate VA sites in her state as voter registration agencies.

Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz made a similar request on July 2, 2008, which not only was rejected by Peake but also resulted in a narrowing of the VA policy such that only VA personnel -- not local or state election officials – could oversee registration efforts. After that denial, Bysiewicz launched a campaign among top state election officials. Nearly two dozen signed a letter calling for the VA to reverse its policy.

The VA has repeatedly said that allowing voter registration drives would interfere with its medical mission and be an unacceptable partisan activity. VA public affairs officers have repeatedly declined to comment. However, other elected officials and policy analysts -- including some signing Monday's letter to Peake -- have refuted the VA secretary’s objections.

This month, Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee chairman, said the VA’s partisanship objection was unfounded.

“The Hatch Act does not prohibit outside groups, partisan or otherwise, from registering voters at a VA facility if federal employees do not participate,” Akaka said in a letter to the VA that also was signed by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA),

Dickson, whose organization advocates for people with disabilities on many issues including voting rights, said only a court order can strip a person of their eligibility to register to vote if they are mentally unfit. Severely injured patients at VA facilities or other nursing facilities already trigger a series of legal directives, he said, when asked whether and when the VA should judge who is well enough to register and to vote.

“It has nothing to do with a medical thing,” Dickson said.

Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause, said the VA's policy was not helping veterans.

“Designation of VA facilities as voter registration agencies is the single most important action that can be taken to help veterans participate in our nation’s elections,” he said. “We will be working with state election officials to make this a reality.”

The next few weeks should see developments that will continue to raise the issue’s profile.

In Congress, there are discussions on forcing the VA to institute a voter registration program.

Meanwhile, the National Association of Secretaries of State will be meeting in Michigan from July 25-28, where a resolution in support of allowing voter registration drives is expected to pass.

Additionally, the state of Connecticut is looking at suing the VA after its Secretary of State and Attorney General were barred by the VA from entering a veterans' home to register voters.

And a federal appeals court in California is soon expected to rule in a four-year-old a lawsuit on the issue, where one possible outcome could be an order that the VA to permit the voter registration drives.