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.”

Here is Fox News’ Megyn Kelly taking on Katie Blynn, Washington State’s election director.  The Pentagon granted Washington a waiver even though their primary is on August 17.  The bottom line in Washington is that they are slow to get ballots printed.  They are using decades old technology to get their ballots printed in time to go out 45 days in advance of the election.  Multiple vendors exist who can print the complicated ballots in 24 hours and get them shipped.   Now that Washington is exempted from the MOVE Act, they don’t have to comply with the law.  Also, it is important to understand that letting military ballots come in late and be counted is NOT a solution to the problem.  First of all, the solider might not detect a problem in time (eg. the ballot isn’t coming) if the ballot is mailed out late.  This issue is not going away.  If you want to know more about overseas military voting, go to the Military Voter Protection Project for more information.

Is here.   One can imagine what Poe’s next letter will look like now that DOJ has so many states not in compliance with the MOVE Act.

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.”

My latest article at Pajamas Media is here.

“The ball is now in the Justice Department court once again. Will they sue the states like Colorado and Wisconsin who are blatantly noncompliant with the MOVE Act?

Ballots need to mail in just a few weeks to Iraq and Afghanistan. We all know who is breaking the law, right now. It isn’t rocket science. Every day that DOJ delays a lawsuit means some solider guarding a dangerous frontier will lose their vote. Shameful bureaucratic inaction by the DOJ in the days ahead will have real and tragic consequences. The attorney general should immediately order the Voting Section to file lawsuits against Colorado, Alaska, and Wisconsin.

It would take diligent Justice lawyers a day, at most, to draft and file a complaint. Our heroes serving overseas don’t have the luxury of going AWOL.”

A few days ago we blogged how the Houston voter registrar had a press conference announcing widespread voter fraud and thousands of illegal and phony voter registrations submitted by an ACORN-like organization called “Houston Votes.”    Those stories are here and here.

Harris County Tax Assessor Collector [and voter registrar] Leo Vasquez accused the group of submitting thousands of bogus voter registration applications in recent months in what he said appears to be a campaign to taint the voter rolls.

Well this morning Mr. Vasquez’s warehouse containing all of the voting machines, supplies and equipment burned to the ground.  A note of caution: obviously law enforcement officials in Harris County will get to the bottom of this.  We are posting this because, for now, Harris County is going to have a mess of an election in November because all of their equipment and supplies have been destroyed.

UPDATE:  Every voting machine for Houston is destroyed.

Patients in Rhode Island’s state psychiatric hospital will be allowed to vote in the November election despite signing voter registration forms as “Count Dracula” and “Rudy Valentino.”  More at the Providence Journal here.

“Vanessa E. Volz, a lawyer with the Rhode Island Disability Law Center who had notarized all 32 forms, told the three-man Board of Canvassers Thursday that she had conducted a patient training session on voter rights at the hospital and returned days later with voting forms.  On Aug. 5, the day in question, according to the notarized forms, Volz said she sat at a table in the hospital’s Day Room, a community room where patients gather to watch television and socialize, and patients interested in voting ‘came over.’  ‘I asked the questions and I filled them out,’ Volz said of the mail-ballot applications, confirming why all the forms showed the same handwriting.”