Despite the fact that the right to vote isn’t explicitly set out in the Constitution (only who must be allowed to vote if a vote is taken), a Wisconsin Republican running for the Senate against Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) this year believes that “very few” nursing home patients or end of life patients have the capacity required to vote.
Eric Hovde, who previously ran for the Senate in 2012, sounds like he starts with the presumption that nursing home residents are “too close to death” or simply too ill to have a valid reason to vote. Report continues below tweet:
NEW AUDIO: Wisconsin GOP Senate candidate Eric Hovde casts doubt on nursing home residents being able to vote:
"Well, if you're in a nursing home, you only have a five, six-month life expectancy. Almost nobody in a nursing home is in a point to vote." pic.twitter.com/i1YIgxxv4K
— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) April 8, 2024
This position cannot stand any scrutiny.
If a person is of sound mind and judgment, it should not matter that he or she has a two to four-week life expectancy, and a short life expectancy may not impact judgment. The only thing that matters is whether one has a sound mind.
Hovde sounds like someone who wants the burden of proof regarding capacity on the nursing home patient to prove he or she is competent.
If one is competent, age is thrown out the window, but Hovde implies that nursing home residency near-proves the opposite.
The vote from dying Americans represents a critical voice.
Does the dying patient have any less interest in which policies his or her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, or enjoy or endure? How about the planet itself?
How does one test that competency? Do we test the competency of younger voters who may have no clue who or what they’re really voting for? (Yes, some mentally challenged people are so thoroughly tested that they are court-ordered to require guardianship).
According to a report in Rolling Stone, and noted in the tweet above, Hovde appeared on The Guy Benson Show on April 5th and said that it was suspicious that “some” nursing homes in Wisconsin had 100% voting percentages.
He did not say whether the fraction of the vote for one party or the other differed from the area in which the nursing home was located, generally. But his implication is that the 100% all went Democratic because Hovde said the 100% vote percentages were from big cities. (More on that below)
To be fair, there have been questions raised regarding the votes from nursing homes in Wisconsin. One can read The Washington Times article here. Furthermore, Hovde doesn’t claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
Perhaps he doesn’t believe that the election was stolen because Hovde knows that he repeated an assertion that Politifact deemed false:
“A review of 2020 poll books in Dane County by the Wisconsin State Journal found just one nursing home with 100% turnout (it had just 12 registered voters), while turnout in other facilities ranged from 42% to 91%.”
Much more from Politifact can be found here.
While it would be deeply concerning if a select few Wisconsin nursing homes had an abnormally high percentage of votes cast, such a situation calls for an independent investigation as to whether votes are being manipulated and not concerns that one might be too close to death to have a sound mind.
It should also be noted that when voting is made easier — as in a ballot handed to you to fill out — people tend to vote. More democracy is generally thought to be better. Where one finds irregularities, an independent investigation can be done.
From the video above and as transcribed in Rolling Stone’s report, Hovde stated:
“Well, if you’re in a nursing home, you only have five, six-month life expectancy. Almost nobody in a nursing home is in a point to vote and you had children, adult children showing up saying, ‘Who voted for my 85 or 90-year-old father or mother?’”
If the 85 or 90-year-old mother or father is incapable of making their own choices and can’t say “I did,” then it is a matter for law enforcement to determine who “did.” (Remember, it might be mom or dad.) If that elderly person says “I did,” that ends the inquiry.
But that doesn’t mean that someone in hospice care or nursing home care should have their vote taken away simply because he or she has little time left to live or may not be as sharp as he or she once was. Focusing on one’s own mortality might concentrate the mind on one’s values in a profound way that should be reflected in a vote.
Again, if someone is incompetent to make their own decision — as attested to by their provider (not that that can’t be manipulated, too) — and votes are cast, that is entirely different and a matter for criminal investigation.
A cut-off line based on a shaky call on “capacity” or just the fact that one is near the end of life not only makes no sense, it is patently cruel.
This report is based on original reporting by Nikki McCann Ramirez of Rolling Stone.
Editor’s note: This is an opinion column that solely reflects the opinions of the author.
Jason Miciak is an Editor at Large for Washington Press
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article stated that Eric Hovde was running against Sen. Tammy Duckworth, rather than Sen. Tammy Balwin. We have corrected this highly regrettable error.
