Voting Wrongs

The failure on the part of state election officials to mail absentee ballots to overseas servicemen and residents in a sufficiently timely fashion violated federal law. District Court Judge Richard Williams has correctly insisted that the votes be counted. They will make no difference to last years' presidential outcome, but that is beside the point. The votes should be counted to uphold the rights of the citizens abroad and to ensure the integrity of the electoral system.

It is tempting to think that, with more than two centuries of elections under its belt, the United States has attained perfection, or at least a high degree of proficiency, in conducting them. And for the most part elections are indeed well-run affairs. But from time to time problems do arise -- as they did last year in Chesterfield, when certain precincts ran out of ballots.

Most of the problems do not prove as momentous as the 2000 debacle in Florida. Yet any of them could be. It's not until after the ballots are counted that a race is found to be a photo finish or a blowout -- witness the recent Democratic primary contest for governor.

Even in blowouts, however, the right to vote remains sacrosanct. And that right, as Williams said the other day, entails the right to cast a ballot and have it tallied. A ballot unrecorded counts as a voting wrong.

Politicians are fond of saying every vote counts. But the sentiment means little unless the politicians ensure, once they are in office, that every vote gets counted.