Democratic Dirty Tricks in NY 23 - Gov Patterson Disenfranchises Fort Drums 10th Mountain Division »
Posted By pc25 2 weeks, 2 days ago in Political News
October 8, 2009
WHY does New York's Gov. David Paterson keep disenfranchising military voters? The answer is obvious -- and ugly. When members of our military deploy, they're acting to protect the rights and security of all Americans. But they often find they've lost a crucial right of their own. Paterson recently scheduled a special election to replace Rep. John McHugh in the state's 23rd congressional district. But he set the election for Nov. 3 -- just 35 days after his proclamation. That short deadline will effectively disenfranchise military voters -- and the governor should know it, since he's being sued on precisely this issue over the last snap election he called. Five weeks simply isn't enough time for local officials to get absentee ballots out to servicemen and women deployed abroad. It takes too long to lay out the official ballot with the names of the candidates, get the ballots printed and get them set for mailing. So absentee ballots requested by overseas military voters -- including the valiant men and women of the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum who are now deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan -- almost certainly won't be received and returned in time to count in the election.
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pc252 weeks, 2 days ago
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as Propeller wouldn't accept the URL from Heritage the rest of the story can be found here
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http://www.heritage.org//Press/Commentary/ed100809...-
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UrbanLegends1012 weeks ago
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I note from the link this paragraph:
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"An Overseas Vote Foundation survey found that nearly a quarter of military and overseas-civilian voters never even received their requested absentee ballots for the 2008 presidential election. Another 10 percent got their ballots less than seven days before the election -- too late to return them."
I believe the claim that getting the "absentee ballot seven days prior to the election is too late to return them" is factually wrong. Most, perhaps all, voting jurisdictions accept absentee ballots as legal votes as long as they have been post marked by the date of the election, provided they are received by the mailed absentee ballot deadline. Granted, it might be that mailing the absentee ballot on the day of election might not allow the ballot to get back to the US in time to be counted, but to claim ballots received less than seven days before the election is too late to be returned is patently false.
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pc252 weeks, 2 days ago
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http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzEwODc2Y...
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FTA
One question that remains unanswered in the Virginia and NY-23 elections is whether overseas military voters will once again be disenfranchised. In Virginia, a source sent me a copy of an email sent to local election officials on October 9 by Vickie Williams, the absentee voting coordinator for the Virginia Board of Elections. Williams’s e-mail said that “It has recently come to our attention that some localities did not began[sic] absentee mailings 45 days (9/18/09) before the election,”
In New York, the governor set the election with only 35 days notice, which is ten days short of the recommended 45-day minimum. So when did the counties in the 23rd congressional district actually get their ballots printed and mailed out to military voters (such as the thousands of members of the Tenth Mountain Division deployed in Afghanistan)? Thirty days before November 3? Twenty-five days before November 3?
The question of when Virginia and New York actually mailed out their absentee ballots is something that investigative journalists in both states should be probing,-
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UrbanLegends1012 weeks ago
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I do believe the absentee ballots do need to be mailed out in sufficient time to make it to the voters who vote by the absentee ballot method and return these ballots by the absentee ballot counting deadline. Frankly, I have a vested interest in this, as I have lived overseas 14 of that last 20 years, and I do vote by absentee ballot.
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With that said, and in looking specifically at the NY-23 district race, the "failure" of getting out the mililtary absentee ballots may not have changed the outcome of the election for several reasons.
One, it is a mistake to think the vast majority of the military servicemembers assigned to Fort Drum vote in NY-23. I don't have any empirical data to back this up, but generally most troops, especially the single folks, tend to vote in their home districts. This isn't to claim there are no NY-23 registered troops at Fort Drum, but I'd bet the percentage is fairly low. Yes, no doubt there are other military voters from NY-23 assigned to other bases and locations worldwide.
Second, if the votes posted here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York's_23rd_congr...
are correct, there would have to be over 55,000 absentee ballots, all voting for the Republican candidate to make any difference in the outcome of the election. Even in the race between Owens and Hoffman, 4091 absentee ballot voters would have to vote for Hoffman to make any difference.
Do we know how many absentee ballots from the entire 23rd district were not sent out, since they were going to military addresses overseas? If there were less than 4091 ballots not mailed due to the time restriction, then the military vote would make no difference.
With all that said, the fact the military vote might not have made any difference is NO excuse not to mail out the absentee ballots. The military and civilian voters overseas should not have their right to vote challenged by artificial deadlines.
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UrbanLegends1012 weeks, 1 day ago
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I don't believe the Democrats have a monopoly on the ends justifying the means, if the reporting by the St Petersburg Times, in their story:
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http://www.sptimes.com/News/071501/Worldandnation/...
such as:
"Over the next 18 days, the Republicans mounted a legal and public relations campaign to persuade canvassing boards in Bush strongholds to waive the state's election laws when counting overseas absentee ballots. "
"Their goal was simple: to count the maximum number of overseas ballots in counties won by Bush, particularly those with a high concentration of military voters, while seeking to disqualify overseas ballots in counties won by Vice President Al Gore. "
"The unequal treatment of these ballots is at odds with statements by Bush campaign leaders and by the Florida secretary of state, Katherine Harris, that rules should be applied uniformly and certainly should not be changed in the middle of a contested election. "
"County by county, and sometimes ballot by ballot, they tailored their arguments in ways that maximized Bush's support among overseas voters. They frequently questioned civilian ballots, for example, while defending military ballots with the same legal defects. "
If you believe the Replican's don't play the same game, I think you are not very realistic.
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happydaze2 weeks, 1 day ago
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"Paterson recently scheduled a special election to replace Rep. John McHugh in the state's 23rd congressional district. But he set the election for Nov. 3" - On Election Day that is. It's the day people vote.
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You guys just can't admit that your TV heroes and Ms. Palin are the ones who messed this one up can you? It has been Republican since the Civil War days. The lady was a shoo in... But, OH NO she's not conservative enough. So you go get some schmuck who isn't from the area and doesn't know the local issues.
35 days woulda been long enough if you would have stayed with the candidate. The 23rd would still be Republican and I sure bet there wouldn't be any complaining if you had won. You sure wouldn't be so concerned about disenfranchised military at all.-
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Endoscopy2 weeks, 1 day ago
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ROTFLMAO
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You fell for the Pelosie lie. The last democrat that held that seat was Michael McNulty in 1989 to 1993. I didn't know the Civil war ended in 1993. Foolish lib believeng the Speaker of the House.
WHY OH WHY DO LIBS HAVE TO LIE!!!!! -
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aceofspades12 weeks, 1 day ago
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PC25 your lack of knowledge fills volumes of empty pages-- A voter votes for the congressman who represents the voter's home district. Soldiers attached to Camp Drum are National Guardsmen, most of whom do not have the 23rd as their home district & are therefore ineligible to vote for any candidate there.
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Another load of fertilizer from pc25-
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pc252 weeks, 1 day ago
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the fertilizer is yours my friend
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Patterson is already being sued over the Gillibrand vacancy for precisely what he pulled again this time
yeah it's the NY National Guard, not the California National guard. The 23rd is a huge congressional district covering an enormous region of northeastern New York State.
see map and scroll away to your hearts content.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/findyourreps.xpd?s...
meanwhile a division is anywhere from 10,000 to 18,000 soldiers. If you don't think that a congressional district of that size would not have a couple of thousand constituents if not more in an 18,000 man division then you are a loon,
FTA
That short deadline will effectively disenfranchise military voters -- and the governor should know it, since he's being sued on precisely this issue over the last snap election he called.
Five weeks simply isn't enough time for local officials to get absentee ballots out to servicemen and women deployed abroad. It takes too long to lay out the official ballot with the names of the candidates, get the ballots printed and get them set for mailing.
So absentee ballots requested by overseas military voters -- including the valiant men and women of the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum who are now deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan -- almost certainly won't be received and returned in time to count in the election.
This shouldn't surprise Paterson or the Board of Elections: The Justice Department sued them in the wake of the last special election back in March, when Scott Murphy beat Jim Tedisco by about 700 votes for the House seat vacated by new Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
Absentee ballots actually made the difference in that tight race -- yet military voters didn't get to have their absentee ballots count.
New York officials are well aware that the US Election Assistance Commission recommends mailing absentee ballots to military voters at least 45 days before they're due. The Military Postal Service Agency's chief of operations suggests at least 60 days.
Sen. Charles Schumer recognizes this -- he's sponsoring a bill to require states to send military and overseas ballots at least 45 days before an election.
Deployed military voters are disenfranchised more often than any other class of American voter. In recent elections across the nation, only 5 percent to 20 percent of eligible military voters cast absentee ballots that were counted. -
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aceofspades12 weeks, 1 day ago
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pc25 -- you took the bait & swallowed it --- Fort Drum is one of five major ARMY bases in NY , the National Guard only use it for training purposes-- so most of those stationed there are not even NY residents- there are a total of 17000 regular Army stationed in NY, so even though the 10th presently has troops deployed in Afghanistan, I doubt it is the thousands you imply.
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Owens won by over 6000 votes - what makes you think every absentee ballot would have been cast against him?
Not everyone has the same compulsive fixation you exhibit. -
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FairNBalanced2 weeks, 1 day ago
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Dede Scozzafava was selected by the Republican Party in an extraordinary way. This should pour a bucket of cold water on the idea that there is some internal revolution happening in the Republican Party. Most Republican nominees have to go through a primary process in which the "base" evaluates candidates. This did not happen, and that created two big problems: (a) a candidate too moderate for the Republican base was chosen (b) in a process that does not have the legitimacy that primary elections have. If Scozzafava had to compete in a primary, she either would have lost (most likely scenario) or, had she won (less likely), she would have been able to claim a legitimacy that she could not claim. Because most party nominees are chosen by primaries, it means you cannot extrapolate from NY-23 to the broader party
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