A special election has been set in Alabama’s 1st Congressional District. The order by District Judge Myron Thompson, which should have been properly labeled a consent decree given the procedural background of the matter, does not comply with the 45 day mandatory minimums for UOCAVA voters, a minimum some in the Voting Section have been hostile towards even before Congress made it the law in 2009.
UOCAVA ballots to overseas voters will not be mailed until October 8. From the order:
Secretary of State mails or electronically transmits, in accordance with the voter’s preference, standard primary runoff ballots to UOCAVA voters who have submitted applications by October 8, 2013.
One problem, the election is November 5, 2013. October 8 is 28 days before November 5. I was never very good at math, but I count that 28 is 17 less than 45.
The order has as an instant runoff provision, meaning anyone who decided to vote in the first primary election can choose who they might vote for in a runoff election. Of course this stop-gap ignores that some in the military might actually want to pay attention to the debates during the run off period. But never mind, some at the Justice Department will cut corners when it comes to military voters.
Then consider the general election – UOCAVA ballots won’t go out until November 15, 2013. That means the general election is 45 days later, right? Wrong. The general election is only 31 days later. 45-31= 14 too short.
All of this was done to get the election in before Christmas. After all, we wouldn’t want to inconvenience any of the political class during the holidays, right? All that campaigning might interfere with turkey and travel. Military voters? Oh well.
All of the procedures in the order to circumvent the Congressional mandate are welcome, but inadequate. The law says 45 days. Not 30 days with an instant runoff. Not 35 days with a ten day tack on after the election. In fact, Congress specifically rejected this idea.
The answer was to set an election that had 45 day gaps between each stage. But when you have some in the DOJ who don’t like the 45 day mandate, and never have, then Justice was offering discounts.
The District Court judge in the case in Myron Thompson. We have a pretty good idea how this deal went down. A few phone calls to chambers, whipping through a complaint and decree at the same time, no questions asked because of who was on the other end of the line, and as usual, military voters getting the short end of the stick. Better yet for Eric Holder, he can hide behind a nice sanitized order that doesn’t even have the traditional “We Ask For This” line as part of a settlement. It helps to have old friends in high places.
Paging Senator Cornyn, I hear that DOJ is going to have another nomination coming up again – this time the same person who may have approved this extra-legal agreement in Alabama.