Last year, we covered some of the problems in the counting of military absentee ballots in Virginia, as did others. This problem has not gone away. It has just moved. The day before election day 2008, the McCain campaign filed a complaint in the Eastern District of Virginia to force Virginia to count military absentee ballots that came in after election day. McCain lost Virginia by more than enough votes, but the case went on with the Department of Justice replacing the McCain campaign.There were filings last month and will likely be a hearing this month. So what?

The Virginia State Board of Elections argued in their most recent filing that they have no legal obligation to send out military absentee ballots in a timely manner. Restated, the State of Virginia has argued in a federal court filing that they can legally send out absentee ballots to active duty soldiers the day before an election. Restated again, theDemocratic Chairwoman of the Virginia State Board of Election (appointed by the Democratic National Committee Chair Tim Kaine, in his capacity as Virginia Governor) Jean Cunningham just claimed a legal basis for massively raising the barrier to voting for soldiers at war.

Really. Read on for details.

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Today, Bud Day, Orson Swindle, and a bunch of other high-profile veterans sent a letter to New York election officials about the problems faced by active duty military in exercising their right to vote in the NY-20 special congressional election that is currently in recount. We have written about this issue before here at Redstate. The letter is pretty hard hitting:

Every effort should be made to ensure that every vote cast by members of the U.S. armed forces serving overseas is counted - in this election and in every election.  But in New York, only minimal steps were taken by state and Federal authorities to get the ballots overseas early enough to have a chance to make it back in time to be counted.  Votes cast by men and women serving in our armed forces overseas may not be counted because of this failure.  That is shameful, and an embarrassment to us as a nation.  We can and must do better.

The complete letter is after the jump.

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It looks like Jim Tedisco may have pulled off the victory in NY-20 after all. And there is good reason to think that the remaining absentee ballots should favor Tedisco. That said, there was a serious problem.

The state Board of Elections seesm to have deliberately disinfranchised military voters. Heritage’s Hans von Spakovsky describes how the Democrats on the Board of Election actually voted to reject a Department of Justice recommendation to send out ballots.

The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, which is responsible for enforcing the federal statute that guarantees the right of overseas citizens and military personnel to vote by absentee ballot, contacted the New York State Board of Elections and requested that they issue their ballots sooner for this race. The two Republican members of the board voted to support this request. Yet the two Democratic members of the board, shamefully enough, voted against doing so. Were they trying to disenfranchise military voters?

So the DoJ actually had to file suit against the NY State board of Election. Hans explains why that suit was still inadequate because, ultimately, the Civil Rights Division at DoJ doesn’t take the issue of voting rights seriously for the military.

In the end though, there are about 1,000 military absentee votes outstanding. In spite of Democratic attempts to disenfranchise our soldiers, some of our troops will get to vote. And it looks like we will win the race.

But we need to stop this coniving next time.

Cross-posted from The Next Right.