Politics at its grubbiest:
The Department of Justice has filed a complaint in U.S. District Court seeking to ensure that New York counts ballots cast in the special Senate election from military voters…
The complaint, filed against Gov. David Paterson (D) and the New York State Board of Elections, says the Empire State has not provided sufficient time for military voters to receive and cast their ballots. Department of Defense estimates say 30 days are required for round-trip delivery of ballots to and from service members overseas. State law says absentee ballots, no matter the postmark, must arrive at election offices within seven days of the election.
But election officials in nine of the ten counties that fall completely or partly within the district issued their ballots too late, giving service members less than 30 days to return their ballots to election offices…
The Justice Department had asked the state Board of Elections to issue ballots sooner, a request that stalled when two board members — both Democrats — voted against it. The remaining two members, both Republicans, voted in favor of the measure, meaning no action was taken, according to a Board of Elections spokesman.
Good enough to fight and die, but inconvenient in the ballot box.
To paraphrase Kipling, you can bet that GI Joe sees.
ever notice that it is the Dems who put obstacles in the way of military voters, but watch the same crowd scream bloody murder when legislation is introduced requiring that photo id be used to vote
Wadda-ya bet both these democrats have “support our troops” yellow ribbons on their SUVs?
The Eric Holder DOJ ACTUALLY filed suit? Beyond belief.
Loss leader, giving Holder plausible deniability for future talk shows.
“Scott Murphy wants to ensure every vote counts in this special election, especially the votes of our fighting men and women in uniform overseas. Scott supports any action to ensure their votes are counted,” spokesman Ryan Rudominer said.”
That’s interesting:
“While at Harvard, Murphy applauded a group’s decision to declare unconstitutional a resolution supporting the ROTC on the Harvard-Radcliffe campus.
In a May 1989 editorial in Perspective, Scott Murphy wrote, “We, as editors of Perspective, applaud the decision of the Undergraduate Council [to declare unconstitutional a resolution declaring that Harvard should have an ROTC program without academic credit on campus and calling on Harvard's administration and the U.S. Military to reinstitute the program on campus].”
Maybe it was just a college thing, we’ll never know because he won’t answer a simple question:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjvi3Sm7s-0
Grey Goat/
“he won’t answer a simple question.”
Like you really expect(ed) him to?
It has only been since about the 1920s and 30s that the franchise has been consistently awarded to service members, and even until WWII, it was not at all unusual for a serving officer to avoid voting, in order to prevent any appearance of political influence. To be sure, it was also a cultural nod at the primacy of civilian control of the military.
Based on my son’s last deployment I would say that 30 days isn’t even enough.
That is an understatement… and mail at the beginning or end of a deployment just never seems to make it… or take 2-3 times as long…
While in Afghanistan it took somewhere between 15 and 20 days for me to get mail from the US. No express mail delivery is available there. Mail headed back home took even longer: about 20-25 days. I mailed a few boxes home before I left, then went through warrior transition, then got delayed several days on the flight back home. Got home, settled in and THEN, a few weeks later, my boxes arrived. No one’s fault; it’s a war zone! There is almost no way to insure this process will be inclusive of those pressed forward to defend and support. The lack of a military vote is only a harm to the Republicans, and they [Democrats] know it!
Probably the only way to provide the deployed troops the ability to vote is via secure web-based voting.
I can already think of several problem areas that would need to be worked out (voter identification, secure access, bandwidth issues from remote theater of operations).
But are these issues any WORSE than denying voting rights of servicememebers altogether? How about some of the questionable validity that organizations like ACORN inject into the electorial process?
A better thought is Jerry Pournelle’s oft stated “beware the wrath of the Legions.”