Jailbirds get absentee ballots, but not military personnel?

The men and women serving in the US Military oversees are not going to be able to vote with absentee ballots for some states (Illinois, for example).  But apparently if you are in jail in Cook County (coincidentally in Illinois), that won’t be a problem.

This is from Investors Daily:

Don’t Ask, Don’t Vote
Posted 10/26/2010 07:04 PM ET

Election ’10: The president’s home state gets a pass from the Justice Department on ensuring its soldiers overseas can vote. An administration obsessed with gays in the military doesn’t care about voting rights for GIs.

You can call it a tragedy of errors, a perfect storm of incompetent and uncaring bureaucrats, or you can call it a deliberate attempt to steal what looks to be a close race for both governor and U.S. senator in President Obama’s home state by disenfranchising its servicemen overseas, votes likely to tilt Republican.

[… Read the rest there]

Meanwhile, the Chicago Board of Elections hand-delivers ballots to inmates in Cook County Jail. The board doesn’t even wait for the inmates to apply — it brings the applications with the ballots! More than 2,600 inmates have cast ballots — strikingly similar to the 2,600 soldiers who will likely not receive a ballot for Tuesday’s election.

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8 Comments

  1. TJerome says:

    The jailbirds largely vote Democratic, the military largely vote Republican. By the way, in most states felons aren’t allowed to vote, but that would disqualify most Illinois state officials.

  2. doozer125 says:

    This is an outrage.

  3. S. Murphy says:

    As a Marine from the Chicago area, I have to say Cook County has always been good about getting me an absentee ballot in plenty of time, on my request. There’s always a campaign going on to get service-folk to use the FVAP or contact their state/county/township or whatever and get avail themselves of the right/duty to vote. Not everybody does.
    And really, in Illinois, the inmates are picking their future room-mates. It’s tempting for the rest of us to wonder ‘why encourage them?’ Although, seriously, there are some candidates in Illinois who seem to be votable for those of us trying to be faithful Catholics and responsible citizens.

    OTOH, a few years ago, my brother told me about one of his college professors (at Northern Illinois, out in DeKalb), who told the class that he had gone to get a driver’s license, and was asked if he wanted to register to vote. He replied, “I’m Canadian.” The clerk said, “but do you want to register to vote?”
    The professor: “I’m Canadian. I’m not a US citizen”
    The clerk: “Do you want to register to vote?”
    We must be the only country on earth that where a certain proportion of the population thinks its non-citizen residents should have the right to vote. But taking the ballots to the jailhouse to make sure the inmates vote is…special. Classic Chicago.

  4. robtbrown says:

    As they say in Cook County: Vote early and often.

  5. stgemma_0411 says:

    Wait….wait…wait. You lose your voting right if you commit a felony. How are these guys able to vote?

  6. Penta says:

    Because not everybody at the county lockup is there for a felony (or even convicted yet).

  7. S. Murphy says:

    Good point, Penta. Some of the inmates do have a right to vote; and it is easier to deliver applications and ballots to them than to Marines, etc., because we’re a bit more spread out than they are…

  8. Supertradmum says:

    One of my army friends said that the vast majority of military are conservative in values and voting. Any connection here, with the big, bad democratic party machine in Chicago messing up military votes?

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