Risk Your Lives--But Don't Think Of Voting

Attorney General Eric Holder, with the concurrence of his boss, wants to make sure you won't be seeing pictures like this more than absolutely necessary. Holder's Justice Department is taking time out of its busy schedule of dismissing Black Panther voter-intimidation cases and fighting Arizona's attempts to stop illegals from crossing the borders to make sure our armed forces cast as few absentee votes as possible.

The Military and Overseas Voting Empowerment Act ("MOVE") was passed to protect the rights of Americans overseas to receive their absentee ballots in sufficient time to fill them out and return them to their home precincts in time to comply with the law. It was specifically designed to protect the voting rights of our men and women in the armed forces in strange and dangerous lands. But just like the unimportant voters in Philadelphia, the Obamists consider soldiers to be fine gun fodder but not good voters.

After several hits from the public about their nefarious actions in direct contravention of the will of the majority, the lawyers at DOJ struck a secret deal with the State of Wisconsin to do a backroom end run around the act. There had been several complaints from the military and memos from the Department of Defense regarding Wisconsin's foot-dragging in preparing absentee ballots for military personnel serving outside the United States. Wisconsin officials spent considerably more time making excuses than they did in making any serious attempt to comply with the act.

The act requires that all absentee ballots for the military be mailed no less than 45 days prior to the election. Only a federal waiver can reduce that time period. Wisconsin dithered around until the last minute, then applied to the Pentagon for a waiver reducing the period to 32 days. The Pentagon pointedly denied the waiver. Instead of acting promptly and in good faith to comply, the Wisconsin officials then tried again, this time asking for only 29 days. In the scheme of domestic civilian voting, 13 or 16 days may not sound like much. But it will make a major difference in the ability of military personnel overseas to receive, review, and return the ballots in time. This is particularly true if they are stationed in war zones, or are on lengthy maneuvers in the field.

In upholding the two denials by the Pentagon, the director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program said that though some of the other states offered thorough and comprehensive plans to protect the voting opportunities for military voters overseas along with their waiver requests, "Wisconsin's waiver application didn't even come close to compliance with the MOVE act." He further said that "the folks at the Pentagon rightfully denied the waiver request."

It was a clear and decisive victory for the military and a strong endorsement of the letter and intent of the MOVE act. Wisconsin, though, continued to act as if the waiver was a mere detail and made no plans to expedite the absentee ballot procedures. In an honest, patriotic and competent Justice Department, a suit would have been filed against Wisconsin demanding injunctions, expedited legal proceedings ("time of the essence") and where applicable, administrative punishment for the offenders.

But this is the Holder Justice Department. No suits were filed, no injunctions requested, no punitive action was taken against the foot-dragging Wisconsin officials. The sneaky, slimy legal team set up by Holder instead entered into secret negotiations with the offending Wisconsin officials. During the negotiations, the time for DOJ to file an equitable action against Wisconsin expired. The brilliant DOJ lawyers actually had the nerve to proclaim a victory by getting Wisconsin to go back to its original request for a shortened 32 day period instead of 29 days. But during the negotiations, Wisconsin produced no more valid legal reasoning for requesting a waiver than it did when the requests were denied by the Pentagon.

The three day difference between the 29 and 32 days will generously be added to the time allowed for counting the absentee ballots after their receipt. Another dirty, sneaky DOJ trick to make Wisconsin seem reasonable. But even the dolts in Congess who enacted MOVE know that all the critical time required comes before the election date, not after. In fact, Congress specifically rejected post-election add-on time as a substitute for compliance with the time allowed for voting.

The extra time before the election was enacted in order to give the military time to receive the ballots, fill them out, and mail them back at least seven days before the election so that they arrive in time to be counted. If they arrive late, it doesn't matter how much extra time is allotted after the election for counting absentee ballots. Late ballots simply will not be counted at all, which is exactly what Wisconsin and Holder's DOJ lawyers wanted. The consent decree validating this evisceration of the MOVE act was published last Friday. No MSM coverage, of course.

The Obamists, socialists and various other Democrats are accomplished election-thieves. Fooling with the mechanics of how votes are received, cast and counted has resulted in multiple recent examples of Democrats being in big trouble and suddenly snatching "victory" from the jaws of defeat. It's always very mysterious. Al Franken's election to the Senate in Wisconsin's neighbor Minnesota was a perfect example of Democrat-controlled election commissions and courts implementing the plan: "Keep counting until the Democrat wins."

If you can keep the voters from voting in the first place, you don't have to bother with all those other legal pretenses. And so it is with Wisconsin, the DOJ, and the circumvention of the MOVE act. This is going to be a bad year for Democrats, and a few thousand, or even a few hundred ballots could make all the difference. Even liberal Wisconsin is not happy with the party in power.

The Democrats know that the military tends to be conservative and patriotic, something Democrats rarely are, and even in good times that means Republicans usually fare better. Obama was a temporary aberration, but he's not running this time. So every possible Republican ballot has to be fended off. Better to disenfranchise a minority of Democrats than to allow Republicans and Independents to vote the leftists out.

Each time I think that the thoroughly rotten Holder can't sink any lower, he proves me to be much too generous. Letting Black Panther thugs go free to intimidate voters and suing states for daring to protect their borders is bad enough. But now this stumblebum and his patriotism-deprived boss ask young men and women to risk their lives to protect the fundamental right of a free people--the right to vote. But the dirty duo wants to make sure that those very same young men and women can't themselves vote. It's far more important for them to protect the right of Muslims to vote for sharia, stoning for adultery, the demeaning of women, and leaders who threaten the destruction of Western civilization than to protect the right of Americans to vote the Democrats out.

So when the next Democrat indignantly asks me if I'm questioning his loyalty and patriotism, my answer will be "you're damned right I am!"