VA Now Allows Voter Registration Drives, But,,,,,

VA Now Allows Voter Registration Drives, But Will Its New Policy Help Vets in 2008?

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted September 9, 2008.

With Senate pressure looming, Veterans Affairs issues a new policy after barring voter drives for most of the 2008 voter registration season.

For the fourth time in six months, the Department of Veterans Affairs has revised its policy on allowing voter registration drives at hundreds of VA facilities serving injured and homeless veterans. Monday's announcement, on the eve of Senate hearings, said the agency would allow voter registration drives if certain conditions were met.

"The Department will welcome state and local election officials and non-partisan groups to its hospitals and outpatient clinics to assist VA officials in registering voters," the VA said in a Sept. 8 news release. "Such assistance, however, must be coordinated by those facilities in order to avoid disruptions in patient care."

Under the new rules, each VA facility will have to publish its voter registration policy, and "develop procedures to coordinate offers of assistance." VA regional counsel also will assess whether any voter registration group is "non-partisan," before allowing the organization into VA facilities to register voters, the new policy directive said.

"We are hoping that this will be fairly fast," said VA Spokesman Phil Budahn, when asked whether the new policy would accommodate veterans living at VA facilities for the November presidential election. "We don't see this as a terribly complicated process."

click post title for more