Since it's your thread, I can participate in the hi-jacking. :-)
I work for the Board of Elections in MD on their nursing home project. We go around to nursing homes to help the residents vote absentee ballots. Part of the reason that the project was started was because some people thought that the activity directors were just using voting as an "activity" and were pretty much controlling the votes. I don't know if that's true, but I do know that in some nursing homes, people who don't even know their own name vote. And, yes, they mostly vote Dem.
On the other hand, there are people there who are mentally sharp, but physically limited. They watch tv, go to speeches by candidates, and really know who they want to vote for. Those people deserve a vote.
I don't know how we sort them out.
Addressing the Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues Raised by Voting by Persons With Dementia
This article addresses an emerging policy problem in the United States participation in the electoral process by citizens with dementia. At present, health care professionals, family caregivers, and long-term care staff lack adequate guidance to decide whether individuals with dementia should be precluded from or assisted in casting a ballot. Voting by persons with dementia raises a series of important questions about the autonomy of individuals with dementia, the integrity of the electoral process, and the prevention of fraud. Three subsidiary issues warrant special attention: development of a method to assess capacity to vote; identification of appropriate kinds of assistance to enable persons with cognitive impairment to vote; and formulation of uniform and workable policies for voting in long-term care settings. In some instances, extrapolation from existing policies and research permits reasonable recommendations to guide policy and practice. However, in other instances, additional research is necessary.
Jason H. Karlawish, MD; Richard J. Bonnie, JD; Paul S. Appelbaum, MD; Constantine Lyketsos, MD; Bryan James, MBioethics; David Knopman, MD; Christopher Patusky, JD; Rosalie A. Kane, PhD; Pamela S. Karlan, JD
JAMA. 2004;292:1345-1350.