Cardstock
September 28, 2004
A while back we had a “spirited discussion”:http://www.thudfactor.com/textpattern/index.php?id=911#comment about ballots and legal maneuvering. At the time, Ken was saying that printing ballots in defiance of a court order in Florida was both morally and legally justified. I remain unconvinced, but I wonder about what’s going on in Ohio.
According to the “Dayton Daily News”:http://tinyurl.com/3s9v5 (registration required), in the face of a very successful Democratic new-voter registration drive the Secretary of State of Ohio has ordered that county election officials strictly observe *some* of the registration requirements — including the requirement that registration forms be printed on 80lb. bond cardstock.
Now, personally I think the people making decisions about who is registered and who isn’t ought to be as non-partisan as possible. But on the other hand, the law is the law…
unless…
your state law conflicts with federal law, in this case the “Federal Voting Rights Act”:http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_09_26_atrios_archive.html#109632246737177814.
bq. No person acting under color of law shall … deny the right of any individual to vote in any election because of an error or omission on any record or paper relating to any application, registration, or other act requisite to voting, if such error or omission is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under State law to vote in such election;
Sec’y of State Blackwell insists the law has to be followed in this case to “protect the registrant” from getting a damaged form in the mail.
Posted in Politics
content rss
September 28th, 2004 at 5:11 pm
John, you pulled a Michael Moore-like misrepresentation of my arguments from that thread. It might make you feel better to set me up as a straw man, but I don’t appreciate it.
1: With my timeline, I demonstrated pretty well that they never violated the order of any court. Check my old comment for the exact timeline. If by “in defiance of a court order” you meant something more emotional and without any legal meaning, then I can say with equal weight that the entire Democratic party is acting in flagrant violation of the Constitution, all state and city laws, and every ethical and moral precept ever conceived. Nyah nyah nyah.
2: I never said that the ballot-printing was morally justified, only that it was legal. It was acting in somewhat bad faith to print the ballots while the legal question was still in the air, and this is why the Florida supreme court ordered them to stop doing so while the question was not yet settled.
3. I talked about the abstract situation where you have one party helping to get someone accepted on a ballot and another party acting to prevent someone from getting on the ballot. Putting someone on a ballot for partisan reasons is more morally justifiable than trying to kick someone off a ballot for partisan reasons.
September 28th, 2004 at 6:06 pm
Fortunately, Ken, the comments are always open for you to set the record straight.