New Haven Independent

The event had all the makings of a perfect photo op: Two of Connecticut’s top Democrats defy President Bush, slam an unconstitutional policy statement and come to the aid of deprived veterans who sacrificed their limbs in the war only to be stripped of their basic rights.

The VA, it turns out, does have a voting access problem, but not the one that the top Dems stormed into town to hang on the president.

Armed with a bevy of reporters, Bysiewicz and Blumenthal stormed the Veterans Administration medical complex just over the city line Monday to fight what they perceived to be a Bush-led “ban” on voting registration at veterans hospitals. Bysiewicz, the state’s top elections official, believed she was being barred from doing voter education at the Campbell Avenue facility. She planned to barge onto campus and rush voting forms into the hands of wheelchair-bound vets, risking arrest by defying a Bush policy.

She found her first rescuee in Mike Onieal, a WWII veteran and amputee.

Are you registered to vote? she asked.

No, replied Onieal. He missed last year’s election, too, he was sorry to report.

Bysiewicz held a pen for the cameras and helped him fill out the form, as Blumenthal, the state attorney general, peered over the back of Onieal’s wheelchair into the cameras’ view.

“How does it feel to register to vote?” a reporter called out as Onieal basked in the spotlight. The veteran gave a big smile.

“This is the reason we are here today,” Bysiewicz said.

“I believe that this is illegal, unconscionable, and unconstitutional, and it is a slap in the face to our veterans who have served and sacrificed so much for the basic freedoms that we enjoy in this country,” Bysiewicz said.

She was speaking of a supposed decision to bar her from doing voter outreach at the facility. Bysiewicz and Blumenthal had understood that she was being denied access due to a recent directive by the Bush administration governing veteran voting procedures.

“My message to the president of the United States is, ‘Say it ain’t so,’” Blumenthal chimed in. “This policy so directly contradicts all of the patriotic rhetoric that we hear from this administration. It flies in the face of basic decency.”

The directive has spurred concern among voting advocacy groups, too. The pair vowed litigation — if necessary — against the feds for the so-called “ban.”

The perfect rescue story soon started to fall apart. Onieal, the veteran, revealed he had already registered to vote, and has been registered for 35 years, in Hamden. When he missed the election last year, he wasn’t even a resident of the VA facility. He recently moved to the hospital for palliative care and was planning to vote absentee if he hadn’t reregistered.

And the fiery rhetoric fizzled as Roger Johnson (pictured) stepped onto the scene. Johnson is director of the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, which has major campuses in West Haven and Newington, as well as six small community-based clinics in the state.

Johnson stood by, leaning on a pillar, as they railed against the facility for barring their entrance and prohibiting them from registering people to vote. When the speeches before the media entourage ended, he asked for a chance to speak.

Johnson told the crowd — contrary to the Democrats’ claims — that he had no problem at all with Bysiewicz helping his patients register to vote. Indeed, he said he’d welcome anyone who volunteers to help with voter registration, as long as they stick to nonpartisan activity. He said the facility has long allowed non-partisan voter registration drives on campus.

Bysiewicz wasn’t sold: Her staff had looked at recent voter registration and found no new voters listing the West Haven campus as their address.

That’s not surprising, countered Johnson: Only five to 10 patients are permanent residents; the rest are outpatients or short-term residents who keep their hometown voting addresses.

Sorry, Wrong Number

What about the staffer who had told Bysiewicz’s office in advance that she would not be permitted onto campus?

Bysiewicz’s office had contacted the wrong West Haven veterans center, Johnson said. The West Haven Medical Center, where Monday’s press show took place, handles 1,500 outpatients per day. Its high-rise buildings can be seen piercing the horizon from many miles away. Instead of contacting Johnson, who directs the major medical campus, Bysiewicz’s office whipped off a June 19 missive to The West Haven Vet Center — a small office that sees 20 to 40 outpatients a day.

“We suspect that the Vet Center … was contacted in error,” Johnson wrote in an email Monday. The Vet Center isn’t part of the VA Connecticut Healthcare System, which Johnson runs. It has a staff of “about five people.”

One of those five — a “brand new employee,” according to Johnson — told Bysiewicz’s office that she wasn’t welcome.

That employee was not authorized to speak on behalf of the Medical Center, since he had no affiliation with it. As for Johnson, he wasn’t contacted until Friday, when Bysiewicz’s office emailed him a request to come onto campus and demonstrate the new voting equipment.

Johnson said he wanted to check with his higher-ups first before giving the OK.

“We don’t expect a problem, but it does fall out of the normal guidelines, so we have to get guidance from our headquarters on this,” Johnson wrote to Bysiewicz Friday. He expected to get back to the Secretary of State’s office in one to two weeks.

“This whole thing is kind of a miscommunication,” explained Pamela Redmond, spokesperson for the VA in West Haven, after the press affair.

Redmond said the hospital will “absolutely” permit non-partisan registration drives.

So is there a ban, or isn’t there? Reporters asked.

“Until a minute go, I thought I was banned,” Bysiewicz replied.

The answer to the “ban” depends on how you interpret a May 5, 2008 policy directive issued by the federal Department of Veterans Affairs. Part of the directive says “voter registration drives are not permitted” at federally funded veterans’ facilities.

Giving the directive a second look, Blumenthal said the ban on voter registration drives probably applies not to nonpartisan groups, but only to VA employees, because the federal Hatch Act limits their political activity. Indeed, the directive goes on to say that requests from non-partisan groups to run voter registration drives shall be reviewed by “regional counsel” — not outright prohibited.

By the end of the press conference, the fire appeared to have faded from Blumenthal’s rhetoric. After hearing from Johnson, an AP reporter asked if the attorney still intended to sue. Blumenthal said his answer would depend on VA headquarters’ final decision.

“Castaways”

Though the theatrical scenes didn’t quite work out for the cameras Monday, some veterans did reveal a true lack of access to the voting process at the health facility.

One of the hospital’s few long-term residents, Berton Francoeur (pictured), was biting into mashed potatoes and gravy in the hospital mess hall. He instantly perked up when asked about voting.

“They never bother to come in and see if we want to vote,” he grumbled. “They never put absentee ballots out here. I think it’s a very bad situation.”

He had grown used to living in nursing homes, where political parties often run get-out-the-vote campaigns and give people rides to the polls. Partisan activity is prohibited inside the VA.

“Nobody ever shows up,” Francoeur said. “We’re castoffs. If it weren’t for us [veterans], they wouldn’t be looking for a job,” he said of the candidates.

Francoeur said he was eager to vote in the Democratic presidential primary, but he found the absentee ballot too confusing, and no one was around to help him. He’s 86 years old and not mobile enough to get to the polls.

“I only have one leg. I couldn’t get a ride. I couldn’t get out,” he said.

Francoeur wheeled out to the press conference and found his director, Johnson, sympathetic to his concerns.

“We need to deal with that issue,” Johnson said. If no one is coming on-campus to help people register to vote, “we need to reach out to them” to invite non-partisan groups to help.

“That’s good,” said Francoeur. “We need to vote. We need to get rid of that guy that’s in there.”