Want to Protect Voting Rights? Screen Restrepo
What does a Sebastian Junger documentary and the Department of Justice have to do with each other? A lot, especially when the DOJ thinks computers are the answer to protecting military voting rights. Before the next election, every attorney responsible for protecting military voting rights should have to watch this Grand Jury Prize winner at Sundance.
During the 2010 election, the Department of Justice was responsible for enforcing the MOVE Act of 2009. The MOVE Act was designed to fix the problems with military voting that had plagued American elections as far back as the Revolutionary War. Servicemembers were simply disenfranchised because they were not sent a ballot early enough for it to be cast and mailed back in the United States by election day. Exacerbating the problem was a Department of Justice that implemented a Keystone Kops enforcement policy in 2008 by deploying inept investigative techniques wholly incapable protecting military voting rights.
The MOVE Act of 2009 mandated that ballots be mailed at least 45 days before an election. But a law is only as good as the people enforcing it.
Instead of strictly enforcing the law, the Department of Justice failed to enforce military voting rights quickly and effectively throughout the fall of 2010. Instead of taking the new law seriously, DOJ officials telegraphed to state election officials they didn’t want to sue any of them for noncompliance. Instead of quickly and aggressively litigating against states who failed to mail ballots 45 days in advance, DOJ cut deals with states like Wisconsin that required ballots only be mailed 32 days before the election. Instead of monitoring compliance with the law, DOJ needed PJ Media to break the news three weeks after the deadline that Illinois failed to mail military ballots overseas.
Perhaps worst of all, instead of following the letter of the law, the DOJ allowed states to rely on computer and fax technology to get ballots overseas. According to sources inside the DOJ, if ballots were available online or by email, DOJ let states break the law and send them later than 45 days before the election.
The belief that technology can solve the overseas voting problem is an eighty percent solution for people who give one hundred percent — and sometimes more.
Recently, the Voting Section Chief authorized a ridiculous field trip for the entire voting section, including secretaries, to take time off from work to watch courtroom arguments in a voting case that none of them worked on. News accounts reported that over half the Voting Section took off to the hearing.
Before the 2012 election, these same DOJ employees should instead go to places similar to the Korengal Outpost portrayed in Junger’s compelling documentary Restrepo. Better yet, they should spend some time in a place like Outpost Restrepo and see how preposterous their technological solutions are for military voting protections.
If they won’t do that, then the next Voting Section field trip should be to a theatre to watch Restrepo.
The very fact that many the military keeps getting screwed by rat faced politicians & bureaucrats like Eric Holder is a total disgrace. I say if ALL military ballots are not mailed out 50 days before an election, then ALL of that state’s ballots are null, void & not counted. Brave men & women die for our country only to be screwed by a bunch of immoral weasels.Why else would you have the phrase “as crooked as a politician?”
The problem with your idea is that it gives Democrats incentives to AVOID sending ballots to military voters of red states. For example, if a Democratic administration expected that Texas military voters would largely vote Republican, your proposal would actually give Democrats an incentive to delay sending military ballots to Texans.
Let me suggest an improvement to your otherwise good idea. I propose that the linkage be between the party in power and the votes which don’t get counted in the event that military ballots are not sent in a timely fashion. Specifically, if the Democrats are in power and ballots do not reach the military in a timely fashion, all Democrat votes cast by any Democratic voter, military or non-military, are not counted. That gives them a VERY big incentive to get those ballots to military voters in good time.
Naturally, the same rule would apply to Republicans (or any other party) that is in power: if they don’t get the military’s ballots out in time, no votes for their party would get counted.
The voting debacle for servicemen follows the familiar democrat MO. Just ignore the law, the media goes along until some schmuck like Chuckie Shumer declares that there is a problem (which he started and schemed to put in place) nothing happens, voting officials are never identified, the justice department pursues white right wing extremists as usual.
Nothing will change until we purge our society of this liberal scum.
A Democrat in the White House enforcing The MOVE Act of 2009? Dream on. Since most of the people in the military are conservatives, who do you think the majority of them will vote for? It is shameful that in this high-tech age of ours we cannot give better treatment to our men and women in uniform when it comes to getting their ballots to them on time. And it will stay this way as long as there are no major penalties paid by the states for ignoring this law. Espcially when that crime is committed in deep blue states like New York or California. They are a bunch of bums for doing this to the people who are defending this nation.
While watching Restrepo – an excellent documentary – is recommended, I suggest sending certain members of the Department of Justice to Afghanistan for a few months on field research. Let them live as the soldiers and Marines live, let them walk a few miles in their boots, and maybe they’ll take their jobs more seriously.
Larry – this is actually a very good idea. I might suggest a couple of names – and in particular the manager responsible for this who places particular relaince on technological end runs to the law.
I hope to have an article about a fomer voting section alum who actually IS on his way to Iraq right now, today.
I’d send the entire Voting Rights Section, along with the Civil Rights Section, to Afghanistan not just for a few months, but for a YEAR (unaccompanied), with no-one allowed within 100 miles of Kabul.
At law, one is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of one’s actions. Dems do not want military votes to count. They do everything possible to prevent military voting. AlGore’s despicable suits in Florida to challenge military ballots while counting every ‘hanging chad’ in certain counties was the in disputable proof of that. Dems object to requiring voter ID back here, but throw up hurdles to military voters at every chance. Get real.
I would ask the same question for those that want to repeal DADT: Have you seen Restrepo? No way people who are sexually attracted to each other should be together in that environment: “Private X, you’ve been trying to hook up with Y (who I want to hook up with)… why don’t you take point tonight?”