The Legal Counsel for The Elderly (LCE) is diligently collaborating with long-term care facilities to ensure workable plans are in place for submitting residents’ ballots on Election Day.
Working closely with D.C. long-term care facility liaisons to coordinate voting with the Board of Elections, LCE specialists and city officials alike want to guarantee elderly citizens safe access to the polls amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re making sure that we have a plan in place, and that we ask for their specific plans. Have the residents received their voter registration card? And then once the residents receive the ballots, how are the ballots distributed, how are the ballots collected? So each facility has shared with us that they have a plan in place,” said Christina Williams, a specialist in the LCE Office of the DC Long-Term Care Ombudsman.
Residents received voter registration cards in the August-September time frame. For those who did not receive, long-term care facility liaisons have reached out to the D.C. Board of Elections to receive cards for those individuals, assist them in completing their cards, and sending the information back into the agency.
Thomas Floyd, social worker for the Carroll Manor nursing and rehabilitation center in the District, is working with colleagues to facilitate safe ballot drop-offs to the elections board.
“The Board of Elections actually came and picked up those registrations and confirmed those people who still need ballots for this election. so we’ve done that piece, and we’re actually waiting for the ballots to be received some time in October, is what we were told,” Floyd said.
The long-term care facility is not experiencing any issues in planning their voting process in the over 200 bed residence, as he is the point of contact with the Board of Elections to transfer physical paperwork and ballots to representatives due to COVID-19 restrictions.
As of now, LCE specialists find most long-term care facilities across the District to be active in securing proper voting plans for their elderly residents in this year’s election.
“I have been reaching out to the facilities fairly regularly to see if there is any training going on, on voting, to see if there’s anything I can assist with for voting, just those little check-in points and they all seem to be doing very well from Northwest to Southeast and all in between,” Williams said.