Redstate

Posted at 3:46pm on May 9, 2008 Unions oppose military voting bill .. because it expands private sector workforce

By Soren Dayton

Earlier this week, I wrote about a proposal by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-22) to make it easier for active duty military to vote absentee by accelerating the mail delivery process.

It turns out, surprise, surprise, that the unions are opposed. Why? Because it uses the private sector. Seriously. They are opposing making it easier for our deployed active duty soldiers on the grounds that it expands the private sector. From the letter that they sent to the House Subcommittee on Elections (full text at the end of the post):

NAPUS is deeply concerned about HR 5673, particularly the provision that sanctions private contractor conveyance of overseas and military ballots.

Note that this was the first thing that they said.

Furthermore, the Rep. Bob Brady (D-PA), the Chairman of the House Administration Committee, refused to hold a mark-up on this bill this week after the unions demanded that he pull it from the schedule.

Let's get this straight. Democrats cave to unions who oppose increased military voting if it means using the private sector.

Read on.

Posted in Elections | Military voting | unions — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:53pm on May 5, 2008 Protecting the Military vote

It's the right thing to do. That's why the Democrats probably won't

By Soren Dayton

There was an important article over in the Weekly Standard by Hans A. von Spakovsky and Roman Buhler about military voting:

A survey by the Election Assistance Commission shows that of almost 1 million ballots requested in the last election by overseas and military voters, only about one third were successfully cast and counted.

Some of it is illegal and deliberate. For example in 2004, Pennsylvania Governor ("Fast Eddy") Rendell tried to deliberately disenfranchise military voters while running a GOTV drive in prisons. But much is accidental, logistical, and structural:

The most common reasons for this failure were that the requested ballots sent to voters were returned as "undeliverable" and that marked ballots were received too late to be counted.

This is a tremendously important issue both morally--making sure that our soldiers have their basic rights--and politically. Undoubtedly, the Democrats, ACORN, and their allies will continue to commit election crime while Congressional Democrats will try to find ways to undermine military voting. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-22) has introduced legislation on this and von Spakovsky and Buhler have their own suggestions about other options.

Over the next 6 months, we are going to watch the Democrats make promises that help their corrupt allies, like Barack Obama's promise to stop oversight of the Teamsters, those pillars of ethical management. Here's a simple thing that they could do for America's heroes. Somehow I doubt they will move on that.

Posted in 2008 | Democrats | Electoral Corruption | Military voting — Comments (4)/ Email this page » / Read More »