Cleveland Woman Casts Her Vote from Hospital After Cardiac Arrest
Anita Blackwell thought she had lost her chance to vote in the November election when she collapsed from a cardiac arrest while heading to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections last week. Thankfully, a doctor who found her quickly performed CPR until an ambulance arrived, and Blackwell was rushed to MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland.
While in the hospital, Blackwell was worried about missing her opportunity to vote. However, her concerns were alleviated when a doctor visited her room and offered her an emergency absentee ballot application due to her unexpected health issue. “I was like, ‘Heck yeah,'” Blackwell said. “I went through all of this, then not knowing how long I was going to be in the hospital, and if I was going to be able to vote, it was really a blessing.”
This program, which helps hospitalized patients cast their ballots, is part of a newly expanded initiative at MetroHealth. The hospital had previously offered absentee ballot applications on meal trays or at the request of patients. Now, Dr. Kathryn Linder, an internal medicine resident, and her team go door to door, proactively offering applications to all eligible patients. They identify recently admitted patients and ask if they are registered to vote and would like to cast an absentee ballot.
The goal is to make absentee voting more accessible and ensure that patients don’t miss the chance to participate in elections due to an unexpected hospitalization. “We’re offering the service to these patients right at the bedside and explaining and answering their questions,” Linder said. “Kind of having that personal touch, I think, really makes a difference.”
Once a patient fills out the absentee ballot application, a Board of Elections official delivers the absentee ballot to the patient’s room and collects it once completed. As of Sunday, 95 patients had requested absentee ballots through this initiative, and Linder hopes to assist at least 55 more by Election Day.
J. Collin Marozzi, deputy policy director for the ACLU of Ohio, believes that more people will take advantage of this program since Ohio has extended the absentee ballot deadline from three days before Election Day to one week. However, he pointed out a limitation: many patients who are in the hospital for extended stays may not qualify for an emergency absentee ballot. “It seems kind of ridiculous, frankly, that this group of people who would be admitted for longer-term care at a local hospital is kind of lost in the shuffle,” Marozzi said.
