Va. violated voting rights, U.S. judge rules a second time
A federal judge in Richmond has ruled for the second time that Virginia violated the voting rights of American military personnel and overseas citizens by failing to mail absentee ballots in sufficient time for them to be counted in last year's presidential election.
"The right to vote means a right to cast a ballot that will be counted," U.S. District Court Judge Richard L. Williams ruled Thursday.
He said Virginia's failure to mail more than 2,000 absentee ballots at least 30 days prior to the Nov. 4 election violated the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, a federal law.
Williams ordered the Virginia State Board of Elections to count the ballots. The counting will have no effect on last year's election, which Barack Obama won by almost 233,000 votes in Virginia.
The lawsuit was brought before the election by the McCain-Palin Republican presidential ticket, but the ticket was dismissed from the suit after the election and the Justice Department was allowed to intervene.
Williams ruled in December that the State Board of Elections violated federal law, but he asked the Justice Department and the State Board to fashion a remedy. Lawyers for the Justice Department and the State Board met this month but could not reach an agreement.
Thursday's ruling gave the board and Justice Department 19 days to determine the process for counting, then 10 more days to count and certify the ballots.
Nancy Rodriques, secretary of the State Board, said the board will meet Wednesday to discuss the ruling. In the meantime, registrars in all 135 Virginia localities have been notified of the ruling, she said. In addition, the 2009 General Assembly changed the law to set a 45-day deadline, she said.
The State Board has maintained that Congress, when it passed the law, did not intend to set a deadline.
But Thomas E. Perez, assistant U.S. attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, said "the men and women who bravely put their lives on the line to serve their nation deserve, at the least, to know that their votes will be counted."
Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or
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The democrats both on a national and state level have never been known to follow the law in elections. Their only hope of winning is to have ineligible, non-existent and long dead voters. Look at the massive voter fraud with ACORN during the last presidential election.
We should be on high alert for our next election. I would not put anything past Kaine given his position with the DNC.
The Virginia State Board of Elections has been taken over by partisan left wing Democrats since the Warner/Kaine Tradition began. Prior to the Warner/Kaine Tradition the board was a nuetral ethical non-partisan agency that ensured all applicable voting laws were enforced as required by law! When Kaine ran for Governor Mark Warner signed an executive order that pretty much allowed anyone with a felony record to vote which is a violation of state law. The same thing was done by Kaine last year in the Presidential Election and will be done again by Kaine next month for Deeds. It has been so bad since the Warner/Kaine Tradition began that even deceased people have been allowed to vote and people who don’t live in Virginia also were permitted to cast votes. This is how lefty democrats get inside a state and take control. I recall more than a few people who voted last year in Virginia’s statewide races that all resided in D.C., Maryland and West Virginia of which none of them were registered to vote in the state of Virginia. Complaints were filed with the Board of Elections but it was never pursued. Voter fraud and illegal voting are big problems not only in Virginia but all over.
So easy to reel them in? What are you talking about?
You say that Democrats subvert elections because the military votes for good values. I point out that the Republican candidate didn’t reflect any of those values.
oooooo you sure got me!
drhoagie: And people like you and 3 or 4 others that post on this site are also easy and predictable. Notice I didn’t say “all conservatives,“ because labeling an entire diverse group of people with a certain political philosophy as dishonest would be completely ridiculous. You would NEVER do that though, right?
The military is predominantly hardworking, family oriented, deeply religious and Conservative. Because of that they tend to vote for candidates who reflect their own value systems.
__________
If any of this crap is true (which it isnt), why would they vote for a man that abandoned his family, cheated on his wife, isn’t religious, and has been in the Senate - the antithesis of conservatism - his entire adult life?
Because he’s a Republican and that party represents those things? What a joke.
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OMG. These people are so easy and predictable. They will fall for the bait every time.
Nowhere in the original post is there any mention of the Republican Party. All the knee jerk reaction poster knows is there is a positive value system being discuss and none of those values fit the value system of his own party, The Democrats.
So he is forced into a corner and becomes angry, indignant and irrational.
He can’t even stay focused on the issue at hand.
drhoagie can sure hook them in, eh?
And yes, it is inexcusable to not mail the ballots out on time.
Just checking—it’s OK though for people like Katherine Harris to have thousands of voters purged from the voter rolls for no reason in predominately democrat voting areas and then ‘ooops it’s too late to add them back’? It’s OK for Republican operatives to camp out in polling places in predominately democratic voting areas and contest damnn near every ballot, thereby denying many their right to vote? Or how about in some Chesterfield polling places in predominately black areas having police cars camped out, clear voter intimidation. Oh and don’t forget the magical running out of ballots, that was a good one. I forgot, that’s OK, right?
Voting is the only pretense that we have that we live in a free society.
Whoever is responsible for ensuring that the opportunity to vote is made available to Americans overseas (especially those deployed!) should have criminal charges brought against them in the event that they fail to meet those obligations.
Rodrigues is a staunch democrat. This smells of voter fraud. Who needs ACORN when you got the state board of elections in your pocket? If you can’t beat them, cheat them, that’s their motto. Pretty pathetic.
The military is predominantly hardworking, family oriented, deeply religious and Conservative. Because of that they tend to vote for candidates who reflect their own value systems.
__________
If any of this crap is true (which it isnt), why would they vote for a man that abandoned his family, cheated on his wife, isn’t religious, and has been in the Senate - the antithesis of conservatism - his entire adult life?
Because he’s a Republican and that party represents those things? What a joke.
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