T-post Tom
10-04-2008, 09:39 PM
Palin: Ohio Vets Are Unqualified to Vote
by MaxMarginal
Fri Oct 03, 2008 at 02:13:55 PM PDT
I get emails from McCain's Ohio arm to try to keep an eye on what they're doing there, since the state will probably decide the election, but happens to have a Republican party establishment that would purge every voter without a butler from the rolls if it the chance. This is what they sent out after the debate last night under Palin's name:
The Obama-Biden Democrats and their allies are exploiting loopholes in Ohio election laws that we fear may result in unqualified voters casting ballots.
The "loopholes in Ohio election laws" that Palin is talking about is a statute that is part of election laws all over America - that a vote is not technically cast until it is tabulated. Republican groups cited a rule that requires 30 days between registration and voting and sought to disqualify absentee ballots that were filled out on the same day as registration. Same-day registration and filling out of absentee ballots is the best option available to unregistered troops abroad and hospitalized vets in VA facilites. The "Obama-Biden Democrats and their allies" are non-partisan veterans advocacy groups like Veterans For America and IAVA that fought tooth and nail to defeat a lawsuit that challenged this very sensible notion to protect thousands of troops and vets from disenfranchisement.
With deployed troops donating 6:1 in favor of Obama, the cynic in me can see why the GOP doesn't want their votes to count. Then the decent person in me chimes in and says "I can't see how anyone could try to block a deployed soldier's right to vote and be able to live with themselves."
Despite Gov. Palin's strange relationship with colloquialism ("Hockey Moms across America", anyone? How many are there?), the use of the term "unqualified voters" in a country that generally lets citizens over the age of 18 vote is the kind of phrase that should've been phased out long before the word "email" was phased in. With regards to the only American citizens who don't get to vote, felons, that's left up to the states. In Ohio, felons are only disqualified from voting while incarcerated, and I'm pretty sure she isn't talking about prison visitors stuffing stacks of voter registration forms and absentee ballots into God-knows-where in the name of democracy, though that would be quite the heist.
That leaves the troops and hospitalized veterans. Nope, don't want those dangerously unqualified voters having a say in this election...
Watching John McCain attack our veterans has become the norm these past few years, with his status as a symbol for the American veteran merely a weird plot twist in his history; an unexplained asterisk standing next to his five-and-a-half hours on the Senate floor leading the fight against the dwell time amendment that would give our troops more time between tours and speaking out against the 21st Century GI Bill that would expand education benefits for our troops for the first time since the Senator himself used them to pay for college. Like a bizarro-world version of Mark Foley ruthlessly fighting pedophiles while being one himself, so goes McCain's inexplicable record on veterans issues.
But finally, he's put his mouth where his money is. John McCain and his running mate, who both have children in the Armed Forces, have declared Ohio troops and hospitalized vets unqualified voters. That's country first?
by MaxMarginal
Fri Oct 03, 2008 at 02:13:55 PM PDT
I get emails from McCain's Ohio arm to try to keep an eye on what they're doing there, since the state will probably decide the election, but happens to have a Republican party establishment that would purge every voter without a butler from the rolls if it the chance. This is what they sent out after the debate last night under Palin's name:
The Obama-Biden Democrats and their allies are exploiting loopholes in Ohio election laws that we fear may result in unqualified voters casting ballots.
The "loopholes in Ohio election laws" that Palin is talking about is a statute that is part of election laws all over America - that a vote is not technically cast until it is tabulated. Republican groups cited a rule that requires 30 days between registration and voting and sought to disqualify absentee ballots that were filled out on the same day as registration. Same-day registration and filling out of absentee ballots is the best option available to unregistered troops abroad and hospitalized vets in VA facilites. The "Obama-Biden Democrats and their allies" are non-partisan veterans advocacy groups like Veterans For America and IAVA that fought tooth and nail to defeat a lawsuit that challenged this very sensible notion to protect thousands of troops and vets from disenfranchisement.
With deployed troops donating 6:1 in favor of Obama, the cynic in me can see why the GOP doesn't want their votes to count. Then the decent person in me chimes in and says "I can't see how anyone could try to block a deployed soldier's right to vote and be able to live with themselves."
Despite Gov. Palin's strange relationship with colloquialism ("Hockey Moms across America", anyone? How many are there?), the use of the term "unqualified voters" in a country that generally lets citizens over the age of 18 vote is the kind of phrase that should've been phased out long before the word "email" was phased in. With regards to the only American citizens who don't get to vote, felons, that's left up to the states. In Ohio, felons are only disqualified from voting while incarcerated, and I'm pretty sure she isn't talking about prison visitors stuffing stacks of voter registration forms and absentee ballots into God-knows-where in the name of democracy, though that would be quite the heist.
That leaves the troops and hospitalized veterans. Nope, don't want those dangerously unqualified voters having a say in this election...
Watching John McCain attack our veterans has become the norm these past few years, with his status as a symbol for the American veteran merely a weird plot twist in his history; an unexplained asterisk standing next to his five-and-a-half hours on the Senate floor leading the fight against the dwell time amendment that would give our troops more time between tours and speaking out against the 21st Century GI Bill that would expand education benefits for our troops for the first time since the Senator himself used them to pay for college. Like a bizarro-world version of Mark Foley ruthlessly fighting pedophiles while being one himself, so goes McCain's inexplicable record on veterans issues.
But finally, he's put his mouth where his money is. John McCain and his running mate, who both have children in the Armed Forces, have declared Ohio troops and hospitalized vets unqualified voters. That's country first?