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Vot-ER has come under scrutiny for registering patients in doctor’s offices

University of Pennsylvania nursing students will register voters as part of a “non-partisan” “civic engagement” initiative – in partnership with a group run by a Kamala Harris adviser.

The School of Nursing will use the Vot-ER platform, according to a news release.

The group aims to register voters through medical providers, including in doctor’s offices, a practice which has drawn scrutiny from a former Department of Justice official.

The founder of the Vot-ER initiative, Dr. Alister Martin, was a White House Fellow in the Office of Kamala Harris. According to Massachusetts General Hospital, he (pictured) worked “directly with Vice President Kamala Harris.” He also has donated $255 to Harris’ presidential campaign, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Dr. Martin did not respond to two emails this week from The College Fix about the group’s nonpartisan stance and the ethics of registering voters in the doctor’s office.

“Vot-ER hopes to reach even more of the voters who are least likely to be heard by democratic systems – young voters, low-income voters, and voters of color,” according to a Democracy Works case study.

The Fix reached out to Dr. Elizabeth Cohn, an advisor to Vot-ER and the vice president of health equity research at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, as well as Dr. Judith Salerno, another advisor. The Fix did not receive a response to two emailed requests or voicemails left to their offices in the past two weeks about safeguards in place to ensure the outreach remained nonpartisan and concerns about Dr. Martin’s ties to Kamala Harris.

The Fix also reached out to fellow Vot-ER advisor Jonathan Kusner, a cardiovascular disease fellow at the Duke Department of Medicine. The Fix did not receive a response to two emailed requests or a voicemail left to the Duke Department of Medicine Fellowship office.

Monique Howard, the senior director of community engagement for the nursing school, did not respond to similar questions sent via email and a voicemail reminder in the past several weeks.

“Our organization’s mission is to integrate civic engagement into healthcare,” Vot-ER organizer Brett Scruton told The Daily Pennsylvanian. He has previously worked for the Alaska Democratic Party, two Democratic Party candidates, and Common Cause, a liberal advocacy group, according to his LinkedIn.

MORE: ASU under fire after Harris campaign accesses data to text 70,000 students

A senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation called it “inappropriate” for medical providers to try to register voters in “vulnerable” positions.

“It is particularly inappropriate for hospitals, clinics, and others to engage in this kind of behavior.” Hans von Spakovsky told The Fix via a phone interview. “What makes this even worse is that patients are in a very special relationship with their medical providers, they are often very vulnerable.”

He is a former member of President Trump’s 2017 Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity and served as a Department of Justice attorney.

“The provider who is supposed to be helping them and treating them is telling them: ‘Oh by the way you need to register to vote,’” von Spakovsky said.

“That gives them the opportunity to take advantage of their patients and say ‘You know what, you should vote a particular way if you want to continue, for example, to receive free clinic services from us because one side is going to be more favorable than the other,’” he said during the phone interview.

He also said many groups call themselves “nonpartisan” but actually push a specific agenda, such as the League of Women voters. “I don’t trust them to engage in nonpartisan voter registration drives based on what I’ve seen and that’s true of many other groups,” he said, saying the League of Women Voters has tried to stop election integrity efforts.

The Heritage Foundation legal fellow said the nursing students should receive basic voter registration training from the county to make sure they do not register ineligible voters.

He also said state officials should keep a “close eye” to ensure the effort doesn’t include “trying to persuade [voters] to vote a particular way.”

Some federal work study jobs also involve voter outreach for liberal-leaning groups. A Pacific University work-study job looked for student ambassadors to help “participate in personal and team efforts to make our own communities more sustainable, equitable, and just.”

Rep. Burgess Owens told The Fix those terms are “code words for a specific political agenda.”

MORE: Penn State students must commit to DEI for taxpayer-subsidized voter job

IMAGE: The White House

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