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Entertainer Roseanne Barr went on a Twitter tear this week, urging the elderly (“old ppl”) to exercise their right to vote – and calling on other able-bodied Americans to help them do so. In a series of posts, Roseanne tweeted: “Help Register old ppl to vote! Some of them have never voted!” “let’s help old ppl register and get to the polls! Let’s help them vote! #Volunteer” “Get your churches and synagogues/temples to volunteer to help get old ppl registered to vote and take them to the polls” “Old ppl!!! Register and vote! May 8th is critical” On May 8th,...

For at least 20 years, Allegheny County election workers have visited Mayview State Hospital and the four Kane Regional Centers to help patients register and vote. Advocates argue private nursing home residents -- especially those with dementia -- deserve the same attention. Pennsylvania is one of 10 states without a mental competency requirement in its election laws, said Jennifer Mathis, a lawyer with the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law in Washington, D.C. The mentally ill in Pennsylvania gained some protections three decades ago after several legal rulings and lobbying by a state civil rights committee. But more oversight is...

Republicans Risk Losing Key Voting Bloc Senior Citizens' Unhappiness With Issues Has Implications for Midterm Elections By JOHN HARWOOD Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL December 15, 2005; Page A4 WASHINGTON – While President Bush has high hopes for today's elections in Iraq, his Republican Party faces a different challenge at home: quelling the political insurgency among elderly American voters like Virginia Renfro. "They should shake [Washington] up a little bit," says Ms. Renfro, 68 years old, a retired school-cafeteria worker in LaPorte, Ind. Displeased with Mr. Bush's Social Security ideas, confused by Medicare's prescription-drug benefit and unhappy with...

As the hunt for every last vote intensifies, one question is being quietly debated in medical circles that may have an impact on this year's election: Should people with dementia be allowed to vote? In California, Democratic activists have filed suit against a veterans' hospital whose officials, they say, prohibited them from talking to residents on the grounds that they have dementia and were therefore incompetent to vote.In Mobile, Ala., the district attorney fielded complaints this summer that mentally incompetent residents of a nursing home were allowed to vote in a municipal election. And in South Carolina, state Democrats held...

Our system of counting and casting votes is a lot sloppier than we thought. I'm not talking about the fun we're going to have on Nov. 2 trying to figure out how to work the new voting systems that 25 percent of U.S.election jurisdictions have installed since the electoral nightmare of 2000.

As the hunt for every last vote intensifies, one question is being quietly debated in medical circles that may have an impact on this year's election: Should people with dementia be allowed to vote? In California, Democratic activists have filed suit against a veterans' hospital whose officials, they say, prohibited them from talking to residents on the grounds that they have dementia and were therefore incompetent to vote. In Mobile, Ala., the district attorney fielded complaints this summer that mentally incompetent residents of a nursing home were allowed to vote in a municipal election. And in South Carolina, state Democrats...