Sunday evening, I attended the annual picnic for our county Democratic party. It is the first time I have attended. While we ate dinner, the chair of the state party spoke to us and talked about the issues associated with the new ID requirements for voting in Kansas, among other things. After she finished, I made it a point to talk to her about reaching out to a small group who can help us reach a much larger group.
One of the most reliable groups of Democratic voters are female senior citizens.
Many of them reside in nursing homes.
Many of them don't have current ID, such as a valid driver's license. They may have never had one, because they might never have learned to drive. If they had a license, they may well have let it lapse, because they no longer have access to a vehicle.
Every nursing home, be they skilled nursing facilities or intermediate care facilities, are required by the Conditions of Participation for Medicare (skilled care) and Medicaid (intermediate care) to employ an Activities Coordinator. This person's job is to schedule the ministers that offer services and music groups that perform. They set up craft projects, and they organize museum outings.
They serve as the primary link for their residents to the outside world.
What if we sent a letter to the Activities Coordinator of every nursing facility in every state with new ID requirements, offering to assist them in identifying residents who are eligible to vote and helping those residents gather the required information to get the ID that they need?
The new ID laws are uniformly onerous. Until we can get the courts to strike them down or stage takeovers of statehouses to repeal them, we owe it to our most reliable voters to help them get what they need to be able to vote.