WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs should lift its ban on voter registration drives at its hospitals, clinics and homes to allow nonpartisan groups to help vets sign up, three Democratic senators and 10 secretaries of state said yesterday.

In a letter to VA Secretary James B. Peake, the senators said the agency should help nonpartisan groups register voters rather than hindering veterans from participating in the electoral process.

"Veterans receiving care at VA facilities risked life and limb to defend the freedoms we enjoy, including the right to vote," said Sen. Dan Akaka, D-Hawai'i, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. "Current VA policy makes it unnecessarily difficult for some veterans to participate in the electoral process."

After years of allowing heads of various VA facilities to decide on which voter registration drives to permit, the agency issued a directive in May banning them over concerns that they would disrupt operations and violate the Hatch Act. That law prohibits federal employees from participating in partisan activities on official time or on government property.

Akaka and Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Dianne Feinstein of California wrote that the ban is "unnecessary and arbitrary and fails to recognize that veterans may need assistance in registering in order to exercise their constitutional right to vote."