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 ...
My sainted mother (RIP, June 2011 at 91) last voted in the 2008 election. In 2008 she was slipping clearly into early dementia. She got a mail-in ballot that year.
I helped her mark what she wanted as far as candidates and ballot propositions went. I did my best to explain to her what was what and made sure she understood as best she could, which really was decent enough. We skipped a lot of items she was not interested in thinking too much about or just didn’t care about.
I would mark what she said and then show each time I marked something to verify to her that I had marked what she wanted.
We skipped a lot. Unfortunately, to me, she knew she definitely wanted to vote for Obama. So, I dutifully, agonizingly, marked “Obama” on that line of the ballot.
I sealed the ballot, she slowly put her best signature on the outside envelope and slowly dated it herself, me telling her the date. I took it to a ballot drop box inside city hall and dropped it off.
Morons for Harris. Check.
KommieLa desperately needs the NURSING HOME vote.
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I will bet that staff at nursing homes have always been happy to “help” Alzheimer’s patients to vote.
I worked for a Demoncrat Congresscritter in the mid-1980’s.
There was a organized effort THEN to drive vans out to the nursing homes - they actually had MANY nursing homes designated as polling places for convenience - where they would pick up “the gomers”...voters that weren’t all there...and “help” them vote.
They still had a lot of the old style voting booths back then with the curtain you closed for privacy. It was pretty obvious that the voter didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on in most cases and that the helper got to cast their ballot over and over again.
They literally justified it as making voting accessible to senior citizens.
You can assist someone fill out a ballot. The ethical issue is filling it out against the person’s wishes. I recommend you assist an elderly relative according to that person’s wishes. You do not want someone else to “assist” who does not respect the person’s wishes.
NYT and their democrat overlords says to destroy your meemaw's beliefs, ethics, scruples, reason, logic and embrace lucifer then beat the crap out of meemaw, take her ballot and vote party line for democrats, reprobate judges, and any State amendment that promotes unbridled evil and fiscal irresponsibility. Ergo, vote like a feminist and a covetous emasculated male.
No, it is not.
The NYT also thinks it’s ok to vote on behalf of deceased relatives too, since they aren’t really dead, just “metaphysically challenged.” (Per an ancient but memorable episode of Mystery Science Theater).
I think my mom wants to vote for Eisenhower. My sister will ‘help’ her fill it out for Hairry/Balz
UNLESS they're VOTING REPUBLICAN!
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