New York City Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani reportedly tapped Alister Martin, founder of a left-leaning nonprofit that has registered patients in mental hospitals to vote, to be the city’s health czar, the Washington Free Beacon reports.
On January 31, Mamdani selected Martin to head the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Martin, who previously worked as an emergency room physician, started Vot-ER in 2019, just before the COVID-19 outbreak. The organization produces resources that help clinicians register patients to vote within clinical settings. One early partner, the Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute, runs inpatient care for people with psychotic disorders. The institute has leveraged Vot-ER’s materials since at least 2021 to register patients hospitalized for schizophrenia, suicidal thoughts, and severe addictions, according to the Free Beacon. Some of these patients were involuntarily admitted, raising difficult questions about informed consent and whether vulnerable people are being used for political ends.
Jane Rosenthal, a psychiatrist and medical ethicist at New York University’s Tisch Hospital, told the Free Beacon in 2024, “Oftentimes these patients do not have the capacity to make a decision early on in an acute hospitalization. What are we doing ethically posing this kind of question to people who are so vulnerable?”
According to the Free Beacon,”Such questions did not deter Martin, a former Kamala Harris staffer, from helping more than 50,000 doctors register their patients to vote. Vot-ER’s tools have been used in cancer hospitals, emergency rooms, hospices, and even the neonatal intensive care unit, where some providers now ask the parents of gravely ill infants about their voter registration status. Critics say the practice is ripe for exploitation and has eroded trust in medicine. Now, as Martin takes the reins of one of the largest public health agencies in the county, invasive questions about voting could become standard practice at many clinics.”
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene did not respond to requests for comment about whether its voter-registration activities would change under Martin. Vot-ER, which reportedly has conducted trainings on “medical racism” and described “DEI” as the “bedrock of fair healthcare,” says it is nonpartisan and compliant with federal election law. Nevertheless, the group appears to favor traditional Democratic voting blocs in practice.
According to the Free Beacon, Vot-ER’s program materials ask applicants about whether the majority of their patients are under 25, Black/African American, or LGBTQIA+. The organization also advises doctors to encourage “undocumented citizens” to register their naturalized relatives to vote, a point that drew Republican scrutiny before the 2024 election.
“Trusting individuals who violated this nation’s immigration laws to only register friends and family who are lawfully able to register to vote is foolish and dangerous, especially when the patients are not legally allowed to register themselves,” the RNC said in letters to some election officials.