RNC Warns NCSBE To Monitor Vot-ER For Possible Election Law Violations

By Theresa Opeka
Carolina Journal

The Republican National Committee is warning election officials in six swing states, including North Carolina, about a non-profit group that they allege may be violating election laws.

North Carolina State Election Board (NCSBE) Democratic Chairman Alan Hirsch received a letter Tuesday from the RNC to monitor the actions of Vot-ER, a 501(c)(3) that was started in 2019 at Massachusetts General Hospital by Alister Martin, an emergency room physician at Harvard Medical School.

He is also a former staffer for Vice President Kamala Harris, and has served on the Department of Health and Human Services advisory panel since 2023.

The 501(c)(3) states on its website that it is a nonpartisan organization that develops nonpartisan civic engagement tools and programs for every corner of the healthcare system – from private practitioners to medical schools to hospitals.    

The group has partnered with over 500 hospitals and clinics and has helped tens of thousands of people register to vote. The Washington Free Beacon has numbers that suggest that there are over 700 health centers, and have helped 89,000 people register to vote.

Doctors have used Vot-ER’s tools to register patients in settings such as cancer hospitals, emergency rooms, substance abuse clinics, palliative care departments, and neonatal intensive care units, where they have registered parents of infants in critical condition receiving care.

Jonisha Brown, MD, MPH, FAAFP, Assistant Professor and Hospitalist, Atrium Health, and Parissa Ballard, PhD, Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine, Wake Forest School of Medicine, are among the group’s advisors.

Vot-ER lists the following North Carolina healthcare providers and organizations as some of its partners: Atrium Health, NC Child, NC Clinicians for Climate Action, North Carolina Community Health Center Association, and North Carolina Pediatric Society.

In addition to North Carolina, election officials in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada received the letter, warning that the organization is weaponizing the healthcare system in each state and across the nation for partisan political purposes.

“Vot-ER’s goal is for healthcare workers to push voter registration materials on their patients via Vot-ER’s provided scripts and resources, turning every check-up and doctor’s visit into a political lecture,” said Luke Bunting, Election Integrity Counsel for the RNC.

He said while the RNC has always been a staunch supporter of voter registration and participation, this “perversion of the doctor-patient relationship” raises serious legal concerns given the laws and regulations governing that relationship and voter registration.

“It is not difficult to imagine how a patient could feel pressured to register to vote or support a certain candidate to receive medical care,” Bunting said. “The power dynamic between healthcare worker and patient is the very reason politics should stay out of the doctor’s office, as suggested by medical oaths such as the Hippocratic Oath and the Declaration of Geneva. But Vot-ER instead sees a doctor’s “trusted role” as something to exploit rather than protect.”

The letter raises several concerns about who the group is helping register to vote.

For example, Bunting said Vot-ER conducts voter registration at the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute, where almost one-fifth of patients in 2020 had been involuntarily committed, and one-fourth had psychotic disorders.  Everything from anxiety and depression to bipolar and schizophrenia is treated.

“Sometimes a person’s mental illness becomes so crippling that he or she may be unable to complete activities of daily living such as caring for themselves and their family, going to work, or even following health prescriptions for existing medical conditions,” the health facility says on its website about the people it treats. “They may also become suicidal, aggressive, or dangerous to themselves or others.”

During 2020, the letter states there wasn’t a single psychiatric diagnosis that excluded a patient from Vot-ER’s voter registration at the institute.

“Targeting our community’s most vulnerable for political purposes during their treatment period is simply beyond the pale,” Bunting said.

In a press release, Dr. Julie Graziane, an inpatient psychiatrist at the Institute, said that voting is “an important part of the recovery process. It has been found to increase life satisfaction, decrease risky behaviors, and increase mental wellbeing.”

Staff help patients, including those who are not stabilized and not ready for discharge, check their nearest polling station, and register to vote online, and request mail-in ballots, according to papers cited about the project.

“Democrats continue to undermine election integrity in North Carolina and dismantle protections for voters,” said NCGOP Communications Director Matt Mercer in an emailed statement to Carolina Journal. “Their latest scheme is taking advantage of vulnerable healthcare patients, pushing leftist agendas, and pressuring them to register to vote. You go to the doctor’s office to receive medical care – not to get a political lecture. This is a clear abuse of the doctor-patient relationship, and we demand monitoring of the radical Vot-ER group in North Carolina to protect patients and uphold election integrity.”

The RNC’s letter also raises a flag about how healthcare workers are interacting with “undocumented patients,” including a script that instructs the worker to provide the patient with voter registration materials and encourages the patient to disseminate the materials among their family and friends.

“Trusting individuals who violated this nation’s immigration laws to only register friends and family who are lawfully able to register to vote is foolish and dangerous, especially when the patients are not legally allowed to register themselves,” Bunting said.

Also taking notice is Congressman Chip Roy, R-TX, who recently sent a letter to Aliya Bhatia, Executive Director of Vot-ER, and Judith R. Faulkner, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Epic Systems, which provides electronic health records services to health care providers.

The letter was regarding joint voter registration efforts by the pair’s respective organizations.

He asked for confirmation that their voter registration programs are not registering noncitizens.

“Vot-ER’s vocal opposition to voter integrity efforts raises serious questions about its operations,” Roy said.

“Worse still, Vot-ER has actively worked against efforts to ensure non-citizens do not illegally register to vote in federal elections,” he said. “On July 9, 2024, Vot-ER, a supposed “non-partisan” organization, signed a letter opposing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act (H.R. 8281), which passed the House of Representatives on a bipartisan basis and would require states to obtain proof of citizenship before registering an individual to vote.”

He said the influx of illegal aliens and other non-citizens into the country’s health care system, which broadly uses Epic Systems’ electronic health records technology, combined with Vot-ER’s public opposition to efforts to ensure non-citizens do not illegally register to vote, raises serious concerns regarding Epic Systems and Vot-ER’s joint voter registration efforts. He asked both Bhatia and Faulkner to respond to a set of questions by Sept. 3.

Finally, the RNC’s letter states that Vot-ER is “run by activists aligned with progressive causes and organizations and is funded in no small part by dark money groups managed by the left-wing Arabella Advisors.”

According to a May article on the Washington Examiner’s website, the launch of Vot-ER was made possible by multiple “deep-pocketed left-wing donors including the Tides Foundation, Progressive Multiplier Fund, and the Windward Fund, a key cog in the $1 billion Arabella Advisors consultancy.”

“Vot-ER seeks to fundamentally change the relationship between Americans and their healthcare providers for partisan advantage,” Bunting said in the letter, warning Hirsch to monitor the organization’s activity in the state. “Their actions offend not only on a moral level but suggest, at the very least, indifference to illegal activity related to voter registration.

Theresa Opeka is the Executive Branch reporter for the Carolina Journal.