PHILADELPHIA, March 20 (UPI) -- Young adults have been trying to "rock the vote" to get younger people to vote, but U.S. researchers say the same effort is needed for "rocking chair voters."
Dr. Jason Karlawish, an associate professor of medicine and medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, says for seniors voting can be difficult -- standing with a walker or cane in the voting booth, struggling to read the tiny print on the ballot or trying to punch a tiny box or button to vote.
Despite the desire to vote, the typical voting process leaves many of the elderly disenfranchised, especially residents of nursing homes, Karlawish says.
Study co-investigator Charlie Sabatino, director of the American Bar Association's Commission on Law and Aging says mobile polling is standard in other countries, but has not been widely adopted in the United States, despite recent recommendations from the American Bar Association to improve voting access in long-term care settings.
Mobile polling involves election officials registering voters at the nursing home, then bringing ballots to residents and providing individual voter assistance as needed, the researchers say.
However, the study, published in the Election Law Journal, says election officials need to be willing to perform mobile voting, provide staff to go to nursing homes and match nursing home resident lists to registered voter lists.
