Senior Citizens Voting Old Age Homes
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has promised to extend Medicare to seniors living in their own homes. Someone will come and attend to their basic needs, while their kids are at work, or if they live alone.
If that happens, it means seniors’ needs will be detected earlier: health and also voting. How many seniors cannot vote because of immobility? Some cannot take the bus and are reluctant to call a cab to the voting station. Most of the information is online, but they are suspicious of the internet.
Fair Fight, a voting rights organization is Georgia U.S.A. reaches forgotten communities and provides them with updated voting information. I wonder if they reach out to people living in old age homes. I don’t know what the situation is over there, but I live in a city where one voting station is on the ground floor of an old age home. In fact, it is a City Hall building with a convenience store, small cafe, fitness centre and a law office.
Senior citizens in lower income groups are eligible to vote. They’ve voted their whole life, until now when old age weakened joints, but they cannot vote if voting stations are inaccessible. They are also not in a voting box like gender, race, religion and economic status therefore, they are forgotten during election campaigns.
Nonqaba waka Msimang
Blogger Without Borders
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