The administration is systematically making it harder and harder to hold it to account at the ballot box, targeting one vulnerable population after another.
On July 20, the Trump administration threw out the federal rules that told nursing homes to help their residents vote.
Two million Americans live in long-term care. Since 2020, federal memos told facilities to help residents get mail ballots and to drive them to the polls if they need it. The government reiterated those instructions in 2024.
A new memo comes from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, under Administrator Mehmet Oz, and deletes that help. In its place it adds threats, warning staff about so-called “undue influence.” It warns of criminal penalties and points to two past fraud investigations of nursing home workers.
One involved a Texas social worker whose job included registering residents to vote. The state hit her with 134 felony charges and threatened ten years in prison. No fraudulent votes were ever cast. Her case now appears in this memo as a warning.
Richard Mollot, who leads a long-term care advocacy coalition, put it this way: “Most nursing homes will do as little as possible,” so the likely effect of the memo is that nursing home residents have now lost any voting assistance.
Last week, a group of senators demanded CMS withdraw the memo.
The administration is systematically making it harder and harder to hold it to account at the ballot box, targeting one vulnerable population after another.
Notes To My Future Self 