Action | Material omissions from absentee ballots. |
Stage | Final |
Comment Period | Ended on 10/12/2011 |
What we talking about here? Disenfranchising citizens of their constitutional right to vote? How absurd! Any and all absentee ballots submitted by the appropriate deadline should be received, recorded and included in the final tally. Those that have some discrepency should be set aside for further examination. The local registrar should indicate on each ballot what the problem is. At that point a judicial pannel of three judges should review the ballot in light of the difficulty and make a ruling. But issues like sloppy handwriting, faulty puncuation, missing dates, incomplete names, or nicknames should not be the determining factor. The only legitimate reason for not counting a vote is an indication that fraud is being committed. Names can be legitimized with the use of social security numbers. I often sign my checks "Bob Button". They are cashed! If I was a service man serving in the Middle East and submitted a ballot via Absentee Balloting, and discovered that it was disallowed because of my sloppy signiture, or because I inadvertently used my common name instead of the one on my birth certificate, or some other trumpted up reason, I would be hopping mad.
We already have had one President elected by "hanging chad" instead of the people. We do not need another such incident. Count them all! If, indeed, a ballot is disallowed, it should be returned to the sender and that person should be given an opportunity to correct any inaccuracy. We have a few months between the election and the meeting of the electors in Washington. Let's use that time to insure a sure and true election, not find ways to take away voters' rights.