I’ll be on WTKK-FM Boston Talks to discuss Secretary of State Bill Galvin and Rhode Island Secretary of State Ralph Mollis getting their waiver requests granted today by the Pentagon so they don’t have to comply with the new MOVE Act to protect military voters.

The Pentagon has just announced the five states which have successfully escaped new federal protections for military voters. They are Delaware, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Washington.  Extensive coverage forthcoming at a variety of places.  Stay tuned.

Election Law Center has learned that the Pentagon will shortly announce the multiple states who will receive waivers from military voting protections under the MOVE Act.  Stay tuned.

An illegal alien who both registered to vote and voted for President in 2008 now wants to become a citizen. Fox has more here.

We have previously discussed the unseriousness of Tennessee’s enforcement of Section 8 of Motor Voter.  It is so bad convicted a felon (ineligible to vote or run for office) actually holds a seat on a county council.

Maryland was not granted a waiver by FVAP, but instead it withdrew its application because it decided that it would mail a federal only ballot to Maryland servicemembers at least 45 days before the election.  It is not supposed to be a write-in ballot like the one being used in Wisconsin.
 
If this is true, then Maryland believes that it can hold an election on Sept. 14 and have ballots ready 4 days later on September 18.  Maryland is rolling the dice–if any of the federal races are close, then there is no way that they are going to be able to certify the election and send out the ballots in time. 

But here is the creepy part.  If the Maryland state government actually adopts this policy, they may harm Bob Ehrlich’s surging campaign against Governor Martin O’Malley.  Why?  Because all those military voters won’t have a ballot for state contests like Governor.  The federal law does not require state contests to be on the UOCAVA ballots, but most states have the decency to include all of the contests on the ballot sent to military voters.  If Maryland indeed follows through on plans to only send a blank federal write in ballots, or federal contests only, this will be a true shame.  Some states are more decent than others.

Part 2 of 3 is here.

The MOVE Act waivers are due out on Monday next week.  Election Law Center has extensively covered  the MOVE Act applications.

The Department of Defense must approve or reject the waivers with the advice of the Department of Justice.  Two issues lurk through the waiver debates: 

1) Can states comply by just mailing a blank ballot 45 days in advance to military voters and consider that a ballot?  What good is it for a solider to get a blank sheet of paper without the names.  Are they supposed to find out who the candidates are once they are certified?  But that is exactly what the states of New Hampshire, and perhaps Maryland, are arguing.  The Department of Justice in McCain v. Cunningham has already taken the position that sending a blank ballot (aka FWAB ) would not constitute a real ballot.  At least the Bush DOJ took that position. 

2) Will the DOD and DOJ give too much weight to efforts at mitigation through computers and fax machines?  Some inside the government (and this will be covered by writers in the future) have explicitly adopted an 80 percent policy.  That is, they are willing to see 20 percent of military voters lose their right to vote as long as those 80 percent are aided by computers to get ballots.  This helps the tail, but not the teeth. 

The people who may be disenfranchised next Monday by the DOD and DOJ are the front line soldiers like the Navy Seals, 10th Mountain, Marines and others who hear the sounds of bullets whistling by their ears but don’t see a computer screen for weeks.  They eat MREs, they don’t surf the web.  They sleep under the stars, they don’t have fax machines.  But some in Washington may be about to adopt a policy that disenfranchises these heroes while they will approve waivers because someone at Aviano can sip a Taurasi and prints a ballot from email.  Leave it to Washington to come up with an 80 percent solution for our bravest servicemembers.

If Washington thinks an FWAB is enough to ignore the MOVE Act then they will have made a joke of the law.

Longtime Democrat and Hilary supporter GiGi Gatson (her grandfather even was Governor of Massachusetts) has this shocker at Pajamas Media.  Gatson is a documentary filmmaker who chronicled events in the 2008 Democratic primaries. 

 “The New Black Panther case — think that was an isolated incident? It certainly wasn’t. That type of lawless behavior got started in the primaries. I listened to first-hand accounts of Obama’s supporters threatening Clinton’s. I heard accounts of Obama supporters stopping fellow Democrats from voting Hillary by any means possible — intimidation, locking doors to prevent entry, sending elderly voters to the wrong address, putting false start times on buildings, fabricating counts, using false information on caucus sign-in sheets, even stealing and altering caucus results.”

Full article here.

EXCLUSIVE:  Next week we will know whether or not the Obama administration takes the protection of military voting rights very seriously.  Twelve jurisdictions have sought waivers from the new protections for military voters, including Maryland.  The new protections require states to send absentee ballots to overseas voters at least 45 days in advance.  On Monday, we will know which states obtained waivers. 

One state which certainly doesn’t deserve a waiver is Maryland.  The waiver application submitted by the state of Maryland is so disgraceful that it is inconceivable the waiver would be granted.  Instead of 45 days in advance, they want to send ballots to our overseas voters only 18 days before the election.  Well aren’t they restrained by state law, you ask?  Yes, but as I have noted earlier , Maryland has passed over 800 pieces of legislation since January, including lowering the age to register to vote to 16 and changing the distance from shore one can hunt ducks.  Apparently to the legislature in Maryland, ducks and teenagers are more important that airmen and rangers.

Election Law Center has exclusively obtained the shameful Maryland waiver application which can be read here.  Election Law Center has also exclusively obtained a letter from Maryland to the Department of Justice from April 2010 making it clear to Holder’s Justice Department that there was no way they were going to implement the MOVE Act.  If DOJ does not sue Maryland, immediately (assuming there is no chance this outlandish waiver request will be granted), then we will know that Eric Holder takes military voting rights as seriously as Maryland, which is to say, not at all.

The bottom line is this: every day that goes by next week that the Voting Section of the Department of Justice does not sue Maryland means it is more and more likely that soldiers and sailors (and Marines; h/t to S) will lose their voice in the upcoming election.  We have previously posted contact information for the Department’s Voting Section where citizens across the country (and world) can petition their government to snap to attention and do what is right and necessary to enforce the law.  The sooner the case is filed, the sooner a judge can order Maryland to treat our servicemembers better than they treat duck hunters and teenagers.

UPDATE:  A reader sends this odd update. “State elections board administrator Linda Lamone said Thursday that the Defense Department found Maryland in compliance with the new law’s mandate that states mail absentee ballots to military and other overseas voters at least 45 days ahead of a general election.”  We will monitor and report in what universe 18 > 45.

The mess in Houston looks worse.  The registrar of election now admits there is a sizeable problem with fraudulent voter registrations in Harris County (TX).  The Houston Chronicle has more.

“Harris County Tax Assessor Collector [and voter registrar] Leo Vasquez accused a nonprofit 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.

Vasquez said his office has received thousands of duplicate applications, including cases in which the office has received six applications for the same person. Other irregularities he cited in the more than 25,000 applications submitted by Houston Votes include cases of underage applicants and people who identified themselves as noncitizens.

“The integrity of the voter roll of Harris County, Texas, appears to be under an organized and systematic attack by the group operating under the name Houston Votes,” Vasquez said.”