Outpost Restrepo, military voting, and movie time at DOJ
My latest at Pajamas Media is here.
Anyone who has not seen the Sundance award winning documentary Restrepo, should. It is a genuine and stark look at the brave Army soldiers who spent a year in no-man’s-land fighting Islamic militants almost every single day. Outpost Restrepo doesn’t have fax machines or internet connections. Soldiers there get ballots by mail, if they get them at all. They live with dust, smoke from burning latrines, swinging pick-axes to burrow into the rock, and firefights as regular as the sunrise.
The documentary provides a vivid account of why the Department of Justice cannot rely on technological solutions such as internet access and fax machines to cut corners in protecting military voters like they did in 2010. Instead of the ridiculous and useless field trip the Voting Section chief encouraged to watch a court hearing, he should mandate every staff member watch this movie. Sources with direct knowledge tell me that the attorneys supervising military voting rights protection explicitly cut corners and negotiated settlements with states allowing ballots to mail late, simply because these states offered internet and email access to ballots. This is shameful and disgraceful, and frankly, after seeing Restrepo, sad.
“No computers. No fax machines. No time to relax at O.P. Restrepo. Firefights are almost a daily event here. Ballots here come by mail, if they come at all. And rough men standing ready in the night occupy so many other O.P. Restrepos.
Their dust-choked and primitive existence renders pathetic and naive their government’s reliance on computer technology to help them vote.
So when DOJ officials try to explain their half-hearted efforts to protect military voters, Congressmen should ask the witness, ‘have you seen Restrepo?”'”
The full article on Restrepo and the DOJ is here.