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This article raises the issue of the political citizenship of the dependent elderly, a particularly vulnerable category of people often (unintentionally) excluded from democratic processes. Our starting point is a practical pilot project that was conducted in a number of nursing homes in the canton of Geneva in Switzerland. The project aimed to offer elderly people a safe and accessible space for political information and discussion ahead of federal votes, with the assistance of young political scientists who visited the nursing homes. The experiences encountered as part of this project highlight two key functions of political citizenship for elderly dependents: First, a social identity function manifesting itself by the fact that having the opportunity to discuss political issues in an adequate space fosters the creation (or activation, or reactivation) of social bonds, both concrete (with the fellow participants in the exchange) and symbolic (with the political community as a whole). Second, the function of recognition (as understood by Nancy Fraser, 1995), whereby elderly people are re-instated as full and legitimate participants in a democratic dialogue and process regardless of the functional limitations inherent in the ageing process. By drawing attention to these two functions, we aim to emphasise the importance of taking the political citizenship of dependent elderly people seriously.