The Department of Veterans Affairs looks after the health and well-being of those who once served the country. Does this mandated care also extend to assisting veterans in the voting process?

Actually, it does. According to a Department of Veteran's Affairs directive issued last May, the department is responsible for helping "patients who seek to exercise their right to register and vote."

But the department has been heavily criticized recently by politicians and voters' rights groups who find current VA policies to be more of a hindrance than help.

The department recently banned third-party organizations from holding registration drives in all federally-run nursing homes, homeless shelters and rehabilitation centers, troubling many officials across the country.

"It just seems wrong to the league that the VA is erecting barriers to voter registration for our nation's veterans," Mary G. Wilson, president of the League of Women Voters told the New York Times. "They appear to be using technicalities to block many veterans from registering to vote."

This sentiment has been echoed by numerous senators, secretaries of state, and advocates of voter's rights from groups like the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) and Common Cause.

"There is no reason why the Department of Veterans Affairs should not proactively assist veterans in exercising their right to vote. To do otherwise is an insult to the sacrifices these men and women have made for our country," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). "It's time the Department of Veterans Affairs reverse its directive and allow these non-partisan, third-party organizations into VA facilities to register veterans to vote."
Feinstein, along with fellow Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI), Chairman of the Veteran's Affair Committee, sent a letter to VA Secretary James Peake urging him to end the prohibition on non-partisan voter registration at VA facilities.
But Peake refuses to budge. According to the Daily Record, Peake recently reaffirmed the VA's stance, citing concerns about "patients' rights, disruption of operations and involvement in partisan political activities."

The VA references the Hatch Act in its justification for the ban. The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from participating in partisan political actives on official time or on government property.

However, opponents say that the Hatch Act does not validate the VA's argument whatsoever. The act only prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan activities, freeing them to help with nonpartisan voter registration drives. Additionally, the act does not ban third-party organizations from running registration drives.

"No veteran who has defended freedom and democracy overseas should experience democracy denied here at home," Kerry said. "We must support voter registration for veterans in every way possible, including allowing assistance from nonpartisan registration organizations.  Impeding voter registration in any way insults the ideals our veterans fought for in uniform, and that's something the Department of Veterans Affairs cannot stand for."

But the department also raises other concerns with running registration drives, insisting that these events could direct attention away from the primary goals of these facilities---looking after veterans.

Matt Smith, a VA spokesman, told the New York Times that the department "wanted to ensure that our staff remains focused on caring for our veterans instead of having to determine the political agenda of each group that might try to enter our facilities."

The VA also insists that it already has programs in place to facilitate the registration and voting process for the hundreds of thousands of patients that check into their facilities each year. However, voter's rights advocates, like Jim Dickson and Joe Davis still say that registration drives are necessary. "Veterans with disabilities have a harder time registering to vote through state agencies, so we call on Secretary Peake to help," Dickinson, the vice president of the AAPD, told the Daily Record.

"Voting is an American right," Davis, a spokesman for the VFW, told USA Today. "Why the VA would not want to help fellow Americans exercise that right is a puzzle."

Yet, VA officials have continued to deny organizations the right to hold registration drives. And Senators Akaka, Kerry and Feinstein are merely a few of the people who find something wrong with that.

"Right before the Fourth of July, Connecticut's Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz attempted to provide voter information and register residents at a West Haven Veterans Affairs facility," they wrote in their letter to Peake. "Secretary Bysiewicz was denied entry to the VA facility under the VA's Directive.  Instead she sought to register veterans leaving the facility.  One such veteran who was registered to vote by the Secretary was Martin Onieal, 92, a World War II veteran.  Mr. Onieal told her ‘There was nobody here to do this last year.'  That is simply unacceptable."