Voting Drive Returns To VA after Feds Lift Ban

WEST HAVEN -- Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz and volunteers with the League of Women Voters will be registering voters today at the Veterans Affairs medical center for the first time since a federal ban on the practice was lifted last month.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs ended its ban on voter registration drives in federal facilities last month. The ban was imposed in May and was attributed partly to the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal workers from engaging in partisan political activity.

Bysiewicz and state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal fought for the department to overturn the ban, which they called illegal. On June 30, Bysiewicz and Blumenthal were denied access to the hospital when they visited there to register patients.

League of Women Voters volunteer Nancy Ciarleglio said she will be on hand today registering veterans to vote, updating registrations and passing out absentee ballot applications.

It was not clear Monday whether the Democratic and Republican registrars of voters from West Haven would be attending the drive and passing out absentee ballots.

Ciarleglio said she wants to be able to offer in-patient veterans at the hospital the same conveniences as would be offered to someone in a nursing home.

"We are just asking to make it easier to get veterans to vote," she said.

Read more election and voter information, visit the 2008 Election Center on Military.com.