Patients in Rhode Island’s state psychiatric hospital will be allowed to vote in the November election despite signing voter registration forms as “Count Dracula” and “Rudy Valentino.”  More at the Providence Journal here.

“Vanessa E. Volz, a lawyer with the Rhode Island Disability Law Center who had notarized all 32 forms, told the three-man Board of Canvassers Thursday that she had conducted a patient training session on voter rights at the hospital and returned days later with voting forms.  On Aug. 5, the day in question, according to the notarized forms, Volz said she sat at a table in the hospital’s Day Room, a community room where patients gather to watch television and socialize, and patients interested in voting ‘came over.’  ‘I asked the questions and I filled them out,’ Volz said of the mail-ballot applications, confirming why all the forms showed the same handwriting.”