A psychiatric hospital in Pennsylvania is encouraging its patients to register to vote as part of their treatment, sparking concerns about the politicization of healthcare. The Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute, which serves patients with various mental health disorders, claims that voting is a “therapeutic tool” that can help patients feel empowered.
To facilitate voter registration, the hospital has partnered with Vot-ER, a nonprofit organization that provides “nonpartisan civic engagement tools” to healthcare providers. However, Vot-ER’s ties to the Democratic Party and left-wing nonprofit groups have raised questions about the organization’s true neutrality.
Vot-ER was founded by a doctor who served as a personal adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris, and it receives funding from groups that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in healthcare. Critics argue that such organizations often push their own partisan agendas, rather than remaining truly nonpartisan.
The partnership between Vot-ER and the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute has sparked concerns about the potential for doctors to impose their personal political beliefs on patients, particularly in mental health settings. This is especially troubling given the vulnerable nature of patients in these settings.
Studies have shown that nonprofit voter registration drives are often not as nonpartisan as they claim to be. For example, a 2020 analysis found that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s supposedly nonpartisan voter registration efforts were concentrated in heavily Democratic areas, resulting in a significant gain in Democratic Party registrations.
The involvement of nonprofit organizations in voter registration has the potential to erode trust in the healthcare system, which is already facing numerous challenges. To prevent this, some argue that Congress should ban the use of nonprofit dollars for voter registration, leaving it to the Democratic and Republican parties to register voters using campaign funds.
