Hawaii is almost as bad as Wisconsin when it comes to what is going to happen to military voters.  Hawaii is not in compliance with the MOVE Act and DOJ should act now.

Bob Carey and his shop at the Department of Defense (FVAP) did a great job and found that Hawaii, home to Pearl Harbor and six other major military installations totaling over 45,000 men and women, didn’t deserve a waiver from the MOVE Act.   Hawaii provided only 35 total days to send ballots to military voters, a full 10 days below the required 45 days under the MOVE Act.  Hawaii overseas voters must generally return the ballots by postal mail unless the voter asserts that they have not received their ballot within 5 days of the election and request a replacement ballot to be sent by fax or email to allow the ballot to be returned by fax.  Again, the Department of Defense recognized the truth that the use of fax is about as up to date as sending messages to the troops by 8 track cassette or vinyl record. People suggesting technological solutions to this problem sometimes have a financial interest in the solutions.  If you happen to be in the Navy at the tip of the spear deployed on a U.S. carrier in the Pacific or Indian Oceans or the Persian Gulf from your home base in Hawaii, you never sacrificed your right to vote.  This year you might have to add it to the long list of sacrifices unless the Justice Department immediately brings a lawsuit to remedy the problem.

The DOD analysis, in reviewing this waiver request, was quite succinct and to the point:  Denied. 

Military voters from Hawaii need a little more action and a little less behind closed doors talk.

Well that didn’t take long.  A guilty plea in the voter fraud trial fo the former Hale County (AL) circuit court clerk.  More details here with a hat tip to RL. 

Singleton was the circuit clerk of Hale County (AL) we previously wrote about here.   During elections monitored by the Justice Department from 2006-2007, certain DOJ lawyers did not want to pay close attention to her behavior because they were hostile to equal enforcement of the civil rights laws.  They explicitly did not want the Voting Rights Act to be used to monitor the bad behavior of national racial minorities.  I wrote about this hostility in Hale County here at Pajamas Media, and it has been sworn to under oath here.  

A voter fraud trial in Hale County (AL) has begun involving the former Circuit Clerk of Court.  The Tuscaloosa News has more.

“Gay Nell Singleton was arrested in 2008 and faces 13 felony charges, including accusations of forging absentee ballots, stemming from a voter fraud investigation led by the state Attorney General’s office. She was freed on $13,000 bail and has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors say she committed the voter fraud offenses during her term as Hale County Circuit Clerk from January 2001 to December 2007.”

I have previously written about Hale County Alabama and electoral trickery taking place there for Pajamas Media.  Some attorneys at the DOJ were willing to investigate and monitor elections in Hale County, while others were hostile to doing so because the wrongdoers were members of a national racial minority group.  I wrote there:

“Perry wasn’t the only place in Alabama this racially motivated rigging of elections occurred. Hale County was also victimized. The Department’s opponents of race-neutral enforcement of the civil rights laws were particularly obstructionist in Hale. But some courageous lawyers persisted, and sought to ensure federal election observers memorialized all of the racially motivated illegal assistance and vote denial.”

The defendant in the trial that started this week was the protagonist which certain DOJ lawyers wanted to give a pass to.  It plainly demonstrates the danger of refusing to enforce the law in a race neutral fashion.

Praise for Bob Carey at the Pentagon’s FVAP unit from the American Spectator.   Criticism for DOJ.  Praise for Senator John Cornyn.  Questions for Michael Steele.  All here.

Fox News ran a segment today about the DOJ’s threat to sue Cuyahoga County (OH) to have Spanish language ballots used countywide.  You an view the debate here.  For previous Election Law Center coverage on the issue click here and here.

From the Washington Times:

“The Justice Department should file suit this week against dozens of states that appear not to be in compliance with a 2009 law to ensure voting rights for military personnel stationed abroad. Failure to file suit will expose the Obama administration’s lack of commitment to military voting.”

The article notes that the National Association of Secretaries of State identified only 11 of 38 states as in compliance with ballot tracking requirements of MOVE.  By my math, that means at least 27 states could be immediate defendants in cases brought by the Justice Department only on tracking capabilities, much less all the other provisions states are ignoring.  So far, DOJ has filed ZERO lawsuits to enforce MOVE despite having knowledge for a month or more about which states are not in compliance with MOVE.   More from the Times:

“Former Justice Department voting rights lawyer J. Christian Adams told The Washington Times that Justice could and should file suit within 24 hours against all noncompliant states, and that there is no reason the department can’t secure temporary injunctions from judges within the week to force compliance. Otherwise, he explained, states can argue – and in previous years have indeed argued – that the lawsuit and injunction are too late to make compliance physically possible. ‘Every day that goes by will strengthen the legal position of those noncompliant states and make it more likely that some military votes will go uncounted,’ Mr. Adams said.

Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who co-authored the 2009 law, agreed yesterday that more must be done. ‘The ball is back in the attorney general’s court,’ he said. ‘Now is the time for DOJ to act, or further disenfranchisement of our troops will certainly result.; Those defending our freedom must not be denied their right to vote.”

If the Justice Department wants Deputy Attorney General nominee James Cole to be confirmed anytime soon, they would be wise to stop having secret discussions with noncompliant states like Wisconsin and start suing them. 

The Washington Times has called for DOJ to file lawsuits to protect military voters by the end of the week.  The first defendant should be Wisconsin, they are among the worst states.    Now that the Wisconsin U.S. Senate seat is a toss up and at least three House seats held by Democrats at risk, I don’t expect swift and decisive action to cure Wisconsin’s failure to protect military voters.

And what makes it concerning is that Wisconsin obviously has no plan to fix the problem.   According to sources, they are secretly working behind the scenes with DOJ to beg off a lawsuit.  DOJ has had a cozy working relationship with the state in the past, particularly going back to HAVA compliance.  It may be that Wisconsin’s attorney Kevin Kennedy felt the entire time that DOJ and FVAP would simply grant the waiver application and they need not lift a finger to comply with the law.   They still may be right but for the moment, but DOD called their bluff and Wisconsin should now be a defendant in a lawsuit brought by DOJ.  

Substantively, Wisconsin is mailing the ballots 29 days prior to the election, in the best case scenario.  The mailing time could be shorter.  This is unacceptable.  In its waiver denial, FVAP stated emphatically that Wisconsin’s plan did not permit sufficient time for UOCAVA voter ballots to be returned and counted as a substitute for the requirement of 45 days under the MOVE Act.  This part of the denial was also a swipe at some nonprofits involved in overseas voting issues and are trying to sell technological solutions to states as a revenue center. 

Wisconsin attempted to allow 10 additional days for some UOCAVA voters so there would be to 39 days for these voters while other UOCAVA voters would only receive 29 days.  Some voters are more equal than others, it seems, in Wisconsin.  DOD rejected that plan.  Bob Carey at FVAP deserves a great deal of credit for rejecting this waiver application.  Now we will find out if the DOJ takes military voting protections as seriously as Bob Carey does. 

DOD also rejected Wisconsin’s attempt to equate the mailing of a blank state ballot 90 days prior as a substitute for a regular ballot.  DOD also rejected Wisconsin’s planed reliance on the use of facsimile for transmittal of ballots because the use of this obsolete technology is minimal by overseas military. Here is the shocking quote from Wisconsin’s waiver application.  Note to the DOJ, cite this in the complaint you should be preparing.  Maybe italicize the word “unable”: 

“Wisconsin is unable to comply with the 45 day ballot transmission requirement under UOCAVA 102 (a)(8)(A) due to the date of our partisan primary (September 14 in 2010) and the associated post-election canvassing schedule.  However, Wisconsin does comply with the spirit of the MOVE Act by sending official write-in absentee ballots to all military and overseas electors with an application on file no later than 90 days before an election.”

This is outrageous.  The spirit of complying with MOVE? by sending second class ballots?  How about just waving a flag next July 4th, ignore the spirit and just move your primary date.

The primary is September 14, 2010.  Wisconsin has left itself only 4 days to meet the 45 day mark of September 18, 2010.  They have given themselves only 49 days to send ballots.  Who is to blame?  The Legislature and the Governor. 

Don’t forget some states respected the rights of military voters and fixed their noncompliance with MOVE.  Florida solved it.  So did Georgia and Vermont.

October 4 is the anticipated date of mailing.  We all know how often jurisdictions in states across the country fail to mail the ballots on time and to report that delay to DOJ or FVAP.  The Keystone Cops approach has been covered at Pajamas Media.   Will the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board implement oversight procedures to absolutely ensure the ballots are mailed in time?

Filing a lawsuit will strengthen DOJ’s position, not weaken it.  The question is whether the priority is protecting military voters, or something else.

Wisconsin had plenty of time to fix the problem.  The legislative session went until May 6, 2010.  They failed to take up these MOVE Act reforms.  They failed to move their primary date of September 14, failed to change canvassing time periods or certification deadlines to allow for more efficient mailing times. 

So the way forward:  Will Wisconsin contract with ballot printing vendors to separately print and mail UOCAVA ballots on expedited timeline?  Will Wisconsin utilize HAVA dollars to pay for the special creation and shipment of UOCAVA ballots?  Will Wisconsin compress their canvassing and certification period by executive emergency order or regulation or will Wisconsin extend the deadline (with or without a court order) to allow more time to ballots to return. 
 

Better yet, will DOJ do what is right and file a lawsuit against Wisconsin this week?  As the Washington Times noted, every day the DOJ delays a case, the stronger the defendant’s equitable arguments against an injunction will be.

More here.   This is no surprise given the past positions of the Ohio Secretary of State.

We previously reported on the illegal alien who voted in the 2008 Presidential election who has now applied for citizenship.  The Department of Homeland security sent the illegal alien a letter asking them to take their name off the voter rolls as a condition for citizenship. 

The Foundry raises an important point: why isn’t this person in prison?  A crime was committed:

Voting in elections when you are not a citizen is a felony under federal law. 18 U.S.C. § 1015(f) makes it illegal to claim you are a U.S. citizen in order to register to vote for any election, punishable by up to five years in prison; fraudulent registration and voting is also a felony under the National Voter Registration Act. 18 U.S.C. § 611 prohibits a noncitizen from voting in an election where there is a federal candidate on the ballot. False claims of citizenship in general are also felonies under federal law, 18 U.S.C. § 911, punishable by up to three years in prison.”

Wall Street Journal covers the retreat.

“As preparations were made for a legal challenge to the Georgia law, it became clear that Justice had exceeded its authority. Last week, officials suddenly announced that the department would pre-clear Georgia’s law. ‘The process that has been granted pre-clearance by the DOJ is actually broader than that which was denied previously,’ said Matt Carrothers, a spokesman for Georgia’s secretary of state.

The episode shows the extent to which ideology animates the Obama Justice Department. Only when faced with a humiliating court defeat did it back down from these absurd objections.”