A Pennsylvania-based psychiatric institute that assists the mentally ill with the “activities of daily living” is reportedly registering patients to vote during their time at the facility, according to an investigation from the Washington Free Beacon.
Patients at the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute — a subsidiary of Penn State University — are often brought to the facility involuntarily. When patients check in to the facility, they are reportedly asked, regardless of diagnosis, if they would like “voter registration tools.” Patients can request and obtain mail-in ballots with “assistance” from the institute’s staff.
“Voting is an important part of the recovery process,” a geriatric psychiatrist at the facility said in a press release.
The facility initially created its own “voter support” material, but in recent years, it outsourced voting to the nonprofit Vot-ER. The “nonpartisan civic engagement” organization was founded by Harvard Medical School emergency room physician, Alister Martin. Martin served as an adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris.
The organization is aimed at helping doctors register their patients to vote, including psychiatric patients.
According to the Free Beacon’s report, doctors across the nation have used Vot-ER’s tools to register cancer patients, emergency room patients, substance abuse patients, and palliative care patients to vote. Some have reportedly registered the parents of newborns in the neonatal intensive care unit, where babies receive critical condition care.
Vot-ER also has scripts doctors can use to encourage illegal immigrants to register their friends and family members “who are citizens” to vote.
Esteemed medical organizations are reportedly behind this push as well. Organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Nurses Association, and the Association of American Medical Colleges encourage doctors and nurses to ask patients about their plans to vote.
The Department of Health and Human Services also encourages federally-funded healthcare centers to provide “voter registration activities” to “underserved” groups.
