Sounding like some groups who used to do good work for military voters, the state of Wisconsin is questioning whether military voters really need their ballots 45 days in advance, and whether technology might instead be an adequate remedy. Of course Congress rejected Wisconsin’s argument and hopefully the Justice Department will also. Electronic mitigating factors are NOT adequate work arounds under MOVE. But you can see Wisconsin’s contempt for military voters getting a ballot on time here.
“To deny a waiver because you don’t have 45 days seems to be a misuse of waivers,” said GAB Chairman Gordon Myse.
Sorry Gordon, that’s inaccurate. FVAP knew better. Hopefully, so will the DOJ attorneys negotiating the case. Frankly, one wonders why Wisconsin hasn’t been sued already. And in a turn of events from the twilight zone, Wisconsin may be dumping thousands of military voters into he inactive category thus blocking them from voting. Yet another reason for DOJ to launch a lawsuit immediately. There is no reason not to as it strengthens their negotiating position and mitigates the same argument that has been used against their military voting cases in the past – the DOJ waits too long to sue states.
You wrote: “Wisconsin may be dumping thousands of military voters into he inactive category thus blocking them from voting.”
Could you please provide further information on this Mr. Adams?
EDITOR NOTE: The article linked states “In addition, more than 18,000 Wisconsin voters are in jeopardy of being tossed from the state’s active voter rolls after attempts to notify them of mismatches in their voter registration were returned to the GAB as undeliverable.
That represents over one-fourth of the approximately 70,000 names that showed mismatches between the state’s voter registration system and other state records earlier this year. Those names will be referred to local election officials, who will send another letter attempting to verify those voters’ addresses. If the letter is undelivered or generates no response within 30 days, the voters’ status will be changed to inactive — meaning they’d have to re-register to vote before the November election.
About 65 percent of the remaining non-matches — about 45,000 voters — resulted from GAB notification letters that were delivered but not returned. “
The reason so many notices came back from military voters is because the military voters are moving deployment locations.