Election 2010 - Soldiers rights violated FOLLOW UP

Waivers from the Dept of Justice have been GRANTED to 5 of the 10 states requesting that they be excused from sending their ballots to military personale at least 45 days in advance of the upcoming election.

Fox took on Washington state today, interviewing Katie Blinn (the assistant Elections director) - she says that while the state sends out the forms only 3o-days before an election ... it allows the votes to be post marked up to 21 days after the election.

The federal law (according to Ms. Blinn) assumes that ballots must be post marked by the night of the election.

So while they are asking for a waiver on the front end for getting ballots out (30 as opposed to 45), they are adding it onto the delivery time on the back side (21 as opposed to 0)

WA state will certify their primary election results Sept 7th ...

the 'official statement' in the waiver itself states that they felt that they could not get the forms reformated, printed, and sent in the 8 working days between sept 7th & the mailing out deadline (by the fed law) of Sep 18th. They figure they are looking at between 55 -65,000 ballot 'packets' for the military & overseas voters.

apparently Washington state has almost 6,000 different ballot styles that they use in their elections. Washington state is also claiming the the soldiers have asked that they be allowed to vote via email but the military says that that is impractable - soldiers on the front line can't stop and check their email everyday, sometimes they go weeks before they can pick it up.

But I have to say -- Megyn Kelly was RUDE to this woman ... talking over the top of her, not listening to what she was trying to explain ...and then dismissing what Ms. Blinn had to say out of hand without really listening to it.

Megyn's response to the changes not being able to be made to ballots in 8 working days? "maybe they should work weekends" ... how snide is that????
The better response should have been, since most ballots are produced by computers why does it take more than 8 days to put the information into the computer and check it for accuracy? Now see that makes a better question ....

if they are having issues with their computers then electronic ballots wouldn't work either.

but why get rude???

we have a city council member like that -- all you do is come across as having a chip on your shoulder and a bully!!