Pittsburgh's Ballots for Patients Deemed a Success
Nearly 15 years ago, Paul O'Hanlon received two eye-opening phone calls.
"in 2004, I was staffing an Election Day telephone hotline for Election Protection, a national non-partisan organization that supports voters on Election Day," said O'Hanlon, of Squirrel Hill in Allegheny County. "The phone calls came from people who were in the hospital, one person was in an auto accident and the other had a heart attack. They wanted to vote from their hospital beds."
O'Hanlon describes himself as a "guy with a disability," a semi-retired attorney who uses a wheelchair. For 15 years, he worked for a disability advocacy organization and it was there he developed a special expertise on voting and election issues.
When he received the patients' phone calls, he was frustrated to learn that, at that time, there was no legal way for them to get an absentee ballot as late as Election Day.
"And I was even more shocked that this had never occurred to me. Hospitals are full of people on Election Day, most of whom were planning to be somewhere else," he said. "Since my mission was to support the right of people with disabilities to vote, I did a 'survey' of all the places I'd find groups of peple with disabilities. I realized that hospitalized people were effectively disabled while they are hospitalized. I thought this would be a good community organizing project."
Two years later, O'Hanlon saw a small newspaper article reporting that the Pennsylvania Legislature passed a law creating a process for an Emergency Absentee Ballot, which could be filed as late as Election Day.
"In 2008, we made our first efforts to actually do this," said O'Hanlon. "Since we really didn't know what we were doing, we made some mistakes but had modest success. Each election since, we've gott better and better."
The program, Ballots for Patients, is an initiative started by O'Hanlon and other individuals with long-term disabilities to help people temporarily disabled and in the hosptial, still vote. It is formally part of the Election Protection program, which works year-round to ensure that all voters have an equal opportunity to vote and have that vote count. It is made up of more than 100 local, state and national partners.
"I was panicking one night that we didn't have enough notaries for Election Day 2018," he said. "I was on Facebook and I did a search for 'notary' and saw PAN."
On October 12, O'Hanlon reached out to PAN through our Facebook page, asking for volunteer notaries to assist hospital patients vote by emergency absentee ballots on November 6. We were happy to help and put the word out on our social media pages.
"I wasn't sure what to expect, but it's been a great connection," he added.
The Ballots for Patients process was extensive. The day before Election Day, hospital patients received informational flyers on their dinner trays that the Ballots for Patients service would be available and how to get on their list.
"About 8:30 a.m. on Election Day, we started going down our list, from patient to patient, helping them complete applications for emergency absentee ballots. By 11:30 a.m. , we gathered all the applications and a physician and our notary went through each application."
The physician signed and the notary notarized the applications.
"It is the physician's signature, not the voters' which must be notarized, to the surprise of most people," O'Hanlon said.
The applications were then taken downtown to the Allegheny County elections Office, filed, and given to the Election Day judge who approved each application. The staff at the Elections Office printed out specialized ballots for each voter.
"We then took the ballots back to the hospitals and each patient completed their ballot. The completed ballots were collected and taken back to the county Elections Office for filing by the 8 p.m. deadline.
"We had a total of nearly 100 volunteers, working in shifts, doing different jobs, and working hard all day," said O'Hanlon. "But we made a difficult process work."
There were 182 ballots from nine Pittsburgh hospitals completed for the 2018 General Election.
"This was a high number for an 'off year' election," O'Hanlon said. "It's been 10 years and Ballots for Patients finally seems to be catching on."
"in 2004, I was staffing an Election Day telephone hotline for Election Protection, a national non-partisan organization that supports voters on Election Day," said O'Hanlon, of Squirrel Hill in Allegheny County. "The phone calls came from people who were in the hospital, one person was in an auto accident and the other had a heart attack. They wanted to vote from their hospital beds."
O'Hanlon describes himself as a "guy with a disability," a semi-retired attorney who uses a wheelchair. For 15 years, he worked for a disability advocacy organization and it was there he developed a special expertise on voting and election issues.
When he received the patients' phone calls, he was frustrated to learn that, at that time, there was no legal way for them to get an absentee ballot as late as Election Day.
"And I was even more shocked that this had never occurred to me. Hospitals are full of people on Election Day, most of whom were planning to be somewhere else," he said. "Since my mission was to support the right of people with disabilities to vote, I did a 'survey' of all the places I'd find groups of peple with disabilities. I realized that hospitalized people were effectively disabled while they are hospitalized. I thought this would be a good community organizing project."
Two years later, O'Hanlon saw a small newspaper article reporting that the Pennsylvania Legislature passed a law creating a process for an Emergency Absentee Ballot, which could be filed as late as Election Day.
"In 2008, we made our first efforts to actually do this," said O'Hanlon. "Since we really didn't know what we were doing, we made some mistakes but had modest success. Each election since, we've gott better and better."
The program, Ballots for Patients, is an initiative started by O'Hanlon and other individuals with long-term disabilities to help people temporarily disabled and in the hosptial, still vote. It is formally part of the Election Protection program, which works year-round to ensure that all voters have an equal opportunity to vote and have that vote count. It is made up of more than 100 local, state and national partners.
"I was panicking one night that we didn't have enough notaries for Election Day 2018," he said. "I was on Facebook and I did a search for 'notary' and saw PAN."
On October 12, O'Hanlon reached out to PAN through our Facebook page, asking for volunteer notaries to assist hospital patients vote by emergency absentee ballots on November 6. We were happy to help and put the word out on our social media pages.
"I wasn't sure what to expect, but it's been a great connection," he added.
The Ballots for Patients process was extensive. The day before Election Day, hospital patients received informational flyers on their dinner trays that the Ballots for Patients service would be available and how to get on their list.
"About 8:30 a.m. on Election Day, we started going down our list, from patient to patient, helping them complete applications for emergency absentee ballots. By 11:30 a.m. , we gathered all the applications and a physician and our notary went through each application."
The physician signed and the notary notarized the applications.
"It is the physician's signature, not the voters' which must be notarized, to the surprise of most people," O'Hanlon said.
The applications were then taken downtown to the Allegheny County elections Office, filed, and given to the Election Day judge who approved each application. The staff at the Elections Office printed out specialized ballots for each voter.
"We then took the ballots back to the hospitals and each patient completed their ballot. The completed ballots were collected and taken back to the county Elections Office for filing by the 8 p.m. deadline.
"We had a total of nearly 100 volunteers, working in shifts, doing different jobs, and working hard all day," said O'Hanlon. "But we made a difficult process work."
There were 182 ballots from nine Pittsburgh hospitals completed for the 2018 General Election.
"This was a high number for an 'off year' election," O'Hanlon said. "It's been 10 years and Ballots for Patients finally seems to be catching on."
