Special polling arrangements for nursing home voters discontinued after ELD pilot review

SINGAPORE: Special polling arrangements for voters in nursing homes will be discontinued following a review of the pilot program, the Elections Department (ELD) said on Tuesday (Oct 15).
The polling arrangements were piloted at 31 nursing homes during the 2023 Presidential Election, and were meant for ELD to assess the value of such special polling arrangements in future elections, it said in a media release.
The arrangements comprised two modes: A polling station set up within the nursing home premises for residents to cast their votes, and mobile polling, where election officials brought the ballot box and ballot papers directly to residents so they could vote from their beds.
ELD said it received feedback and made key observations from the pilot, including the “limited mental capacity of voters” and the risk of compromising voting secrecy. 
The arrangements were also “operationally challenging and resource intensive”, it added.
ELD told CNA that 3,157 nursing home residents voted in the 2023 Presidential Election.
“Nursing home residents can continue to vote at their allotted polling stations,” the department said.
“ELD would like to express our appreciation to the nursing home operators and staff who worked with us on the pilot.”
After the Presidential Election last year, ELD conducted a review of the pilot programme. 
One key observation was the “limited mental capacity” of voters at nursing homes, ELD said.
“Both election officers and political party representatives observed that, despite instructions and explanations from election officers, many residents did not understand why they were voting and the significance of their votes,” it added.
“Consequently, the proportion of rejected votes was high.”
Of the total number of votes cast at nursing homes, 15.3 per cent of the votes were rejected, primarily due to blank votes. This compares with 2 per cent of votes rejected generally.
ELD said the special polling arrangements also risked compromising voting secrecy.
Despite measures to ensure voting secrecy during mobile polling, such as providing a portable lap booth for voters to mark their ballot papers and requiring all election officers to step away from the voter’s bed, there remained concerns about voting secrecy being compromised, ELD said.
“This is due to the close proximity of the beds to one another,” it added.
There were also operational challenges.
“About 20 election officers were deployed in each nursing home to serve about 300 or (fewer) nursing home voters while a similar number of election officers serves between 2,501 to 3,000 voters at each ordinary polling station,” ELD said.
About 300 nursing home staff members also helped facilitate special polling arrangements at the nursing homes.
Some nursing home operators told ELD that the polling arrangements were operationally challenging for them as they placed added demand on nursing home staff, on top of the core duties of caring for the residents.
Given the “added operational complexities” of implementing special polling arrangements in a General Election, the ELD will discontinue such arrangements at nursing homes, it said.
During the last Presidential Election, political party representatives were allowed to observe the conduct of the special polling arrangements at a designated nursing home, as it was the first time such arrangements were used.
If special polling arrangements were used in the upcoming General Election, the “added complexities” could include having to manage a large number of polling agents from political parties observing the processes at nursing homes, as residents will be voting in different electoral divisions, said ELD.
The next General Election must be held by November 2025. It will be the first under Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and his fourth-generation or 4G leadership team.