For related blog posts on the business of voting while being a carer/being cared for, I recommend this post on SCRIBBLING. If you can't sign your name as the result of arthritis, you'll need a signature waiver.
And I also heartily recommend this one on VOTING. How do you provide assistance with voting when the voter has dementia? You provide assistance, and no more. It is illegal to just do the damned vote on a person's behalf. I'll go over this briefly again here.
Let's start at the end of a previous post.
In all these years of being a carer, the cared-for always managed to vote by herself. It takes a bit of organising to keep things that way, but that’s what carers do. X marks the spot. (Unless you operate under a different voting arrangement, of course.)
It is time for another election. At least there aren't elections for two different things on the one day. That's something. Again, writing about electoral matters, I blog monthly...but this has to go out before the election if to be any use...so I just hurry the publication date along a wee bit. The world won't stop turning as a result of a touch of chivvying.
From the previous post on voting, postal voting at that, I ended on a comment about placing a cross in a box. Unless a different system is in place.
For this election, a different system is in place. We move from the simple method of placing a cross in a box as your vote to placing numbers for multiple candidates. It's an election for the Local Authority.
Fur rah cooncil.
An election for the council must elect several candidates to the herd. For that reason, we vote in order of preference for candidates, placing as many or as few numbered votes as we please. But note that they are numbered votes.
This voting process is straightforward if you don't have dementia. And this numbered voting process is straightforward if you don't have arthritis. Now for the mathematical formula.
Dementia x Arthritis = Nah.
Everything straightforward in life is straightforward if it is straightforward. Otherwise, you must meander across the landscape to reach the same general outcome. The river will reach the nearby sea, but not in a straight line.
I've written about preparing for voting.
Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.
Create a box on a blank piece of paper and hand the pencil over to the voter. No, don't use a pen. Get the voter used to the concept of a piece of paper with a box on it. Allow the voter to become familiar with the idea of the pencil.
No, don't offer a pen.
Your experience varies, depending on the level of dementia and the intensity of the arthritis in the voting hand. If this isn't working out for you, consider switching hands. That's if two hands are available, of course.
Usually, when placing a cross in the box, switching hands to vote isn't going to be much of a problem. You aren't constructing the Eiffel Tower out of matchsticks. If you walk away with an X on the ballot, call that a victory.
This time around, we're dealing with numbers and not crosses. And this time around, as always, you revisit what happened before. You consider progression. The bad advance of things. Not progress. Progression.
Dementia progresses. This is true of arthritis. Change sneaks up on you as a carer, or it explodes and shakes the walls around you. In this case, arthritis decided to hit the TURBO-BOOST button and fly up that ramp, across the arena, and into the crowd.
Ouch.
We've been dealing with mobility problems that were made worse by an increase in arthritic distortion. It doesn't matter what you are making use of to stand up, you are making use of your hands to grab that mobility aid when you try to stand up.
This is the case of a right-handed person with finger distortion in both hands, and relentless closing of the left hand over the past half-year. We've been dealing with that. Altering. Adjusting.
I'm making a point about switching hands. It isn't always going to be possible to use the back-up mitt. We're taking steps to open the left hand again without resorting to invasive techniques.
Help comes in the form of carefully opening the fingers back up again. This is no cure. Hell, what is. But it makes moving around a little more secure again.
The postal ballots are here. What if she can't use her right hand to hold a pencil? The left hand is (currently) not an option. If you can get something into her left hand, it will be clamped there. Hang on. I'm starting to see an idea form...
Daily, I use a plastic rod to thread an inflatable support through the left hand, and then pump that support up, opening the hand by degrees. The technical term for this support is a carrot.
So. If the hand can take a plastic rod, it could take a pencil. Why consider this? She hasn't held a pencil in her right hand since the last vote. And there is mild distortion in the right hand that could make using a pencil awkward.
Potential situation? Comparison, next to the last election phase. The right hand is slightly worse, now. And the left hand is much worse, now.
Yet...
If she can't wield the pencil in her right hand through distortion, the pencil will fit inside her left hand through extreme distortion. I'll improvise.
My talk of voting, before, only hinted at using numbers for voting choices. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. We'll do the same thing as before. But it'll be structured more severely this time around.
We'll rehearse the number 1. Yes, we'll do this strictly by the numbers. This application of a single line is easier than placing a cross would be, so I see very little difficulty with this one. Or...this 1.
I'll take a mad guess and imagine that the basic number calls for half of the effort of a cross. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. And then we'll vote for the first candidate. Death by a thousand cuts.
After that, we'll rehearse all over again for candidate two...and a number with a curve. A shaky line is a shaky line and signifies the number for the first candidate. And that's all fine.
But a shaky curve could be all over the place. I don't think we can rehearse all the numbers we need for this and then go into the business. No. It has to be the rehearsal for the first candidate, the actual vote, and then back into ballet rehearsals again.
We'll be using a pencil in case there are tragic errors. Tragic errors are far more tragic when they are tragic ink-based errors. Yes, we'll erase tragic pencil errors. And go again. Until the job is done. Reminder, if you haven't read the earlier blog post...
Power of Attorney does not grant you the right to vote in place of someone with dementia. And you should never write anything on the ballot paper except for the vote.
Don't write UNCLE REG HAS DEMENTIA NOW, SO WE ARE USING POWER OF ATTORNEY FOR HIM on the ballot paper. Firstly, Power of Attorney doesn't give you the right to vote on someone else's behalf. (You must arrange to be a proxy voter for that to be legal.)
And secondly, writing a phrase, using words, has ruined the ballot. It will be ignored and discounted.
Thirdly, you've just committed electoral fraud.
Fourthly, you've just admitted to committing electoral fraud.
No, don't be doing any of that.
There are ways to do this. If my mother can't physically write the number, the legal options are still there. I'd step in and get a proxy vote. True, she'd have to request a proxy vote - and my Power of Attorney lets me step in for that part of the process.
As I am caring for someone with underlying health conditions that place her at greater risk of Covid, and as I am a carer generally, I'd prefer a postal version of the proxy vote.
Lower the risk when you can. I have to admit the daily carer and the dietician. One assists with bathing. The other makes it easy for us to monitor weight. I could phone in weight after a difficult task of moving a body on and off scales. But it works better with the dietician on one side and me on the other.
I lower the risk of exposure to Covid by making postal votes. If I must change the arrangements, I'll keep an eye on the arthritis and make informed decisions between elections.
This time around, yes, I'd forgotten about the numbers. I let the voting system spring a mini-ambush on me. Can I deal with that? Yes. Is it a world-shattering election? Oh, every election is a world-shattering election to the people an election matters most to.
TV presenters who cover politics.
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