Posted on 09/12/2024 3:16:28 PM PDT by DFG
The New York Times encouraged a reader last week to “help” a 97-year-old woman with advanced memory loss — who is “becoming nearly impossible to communicate with” — to complete her ballot.
“When the situation is hazy, my inclination would be to err on the side of helping someone to vote, because voting is such a central form of civic participation,” wrote the Times’ “Ethicist” Columnist Kwame Anthony Appiah.
The Problem A reader wrote the Times, saying the grandmother has “advanced” Alzheimer’s and hearing loss. The reader wanted to know if it would be “unethical” to help the elderly woman vote in November, likely having the grandma do “the mechanics of voting” while family members “advise her.”
The reader claimed to have helped the grandmother fill out her absentee ballot in 2020.
“She held the pen while we did our best to explain each office and issue. If there was any confusion, we would tell her how we voted, and she would do the same,” the reader wrote. “Is it unethical to help her vote again this November?”
The reader wrote that the elderly woman’s “cognition was in decline four years ago, but it was not as degraded as it is now.”
“I foresee things playing out similarly to the last general election, in which she performs the mechanics of voting while we advise her,” the reader wrote. “Before her illness, we were familiar enough with her political opinions to be reasonably confident about whom and what she would vote for. But I’m also conscious of the fact that the line between assistance and coercion is blurred in this situation.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
Does that mean that we can help a journalism major?
So I guess it’s OK for Dr Jill to help Joe vote.
Good Grief.
Would the woman even know if she voted or not?
But I don’t want my democrat relatives to vote.
These people think they are running the Soviet Union now.
KommieLa desperately needs the NURSING HOME vote.
The Slimes is talking about their mentally incapacitated relatives who work for the Slimes.
Funny thing is I visit two Nusing homes and one 35 unit elder housing complex 5 days a week. I wonder the last time she has done so.
Does he mean the Trump hating idiots in my family and friends? All the New Yorkers?
It is illegal to vote for someone else for any reason.
There is NOTHING the DemocRATS won’t do to win. There is little the Republicans WILL do to win.
Then help them fill out their ballots. You can accidentally spoil it in the process.
Sure. You can let them drive your semi also. And maybe serve as a Law Enforcement Officer.
What he describes (interpreting the will of a voter who lacks the mental capacity to express it) is illegal under Election law in--as far as I know--all states in the U.S.
Are these "Affikan Efficks?" They're certainly not American.
evil question. evil answer.
“”””“When the situation is hazy, my inclination would be to err on the side of helping someone to vote, because voting is such a central form of civic participation,””””
What a bunch of BS. Most states have laws that those deemed incompetent cannot vote.
Just because an incompetent person who has not been deemed incompetent does not mean that someone else can vote for them.
Bkmk
That “ethicist” is unethical.
Say what?
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