Posted on 07/27/2012 5:14:31 PM PDT by cripplecreek
LANSING, MI - The U.S. Justice Department is expected to sue the state because at least 70 city and township clerks across Michigan missed deadlines to give absentee ballots to military and overseas voters, Secretary of State Ruth Johnson said late Friday.
Under state and federal law, clerks are supposed to make absentee ballots available at least 45 days before an election to military and overseas voters who request them. The primary election is Aug. 7.
Johnson, a Republican, said the suit could force clerks to extend the time for receiving and counting affected ballots.
Johnson said 70 communities missed the deadline - including larger ones such as Battle Creek, Ferndale, Dearborn and Canton Township. Another 215 clerks did not respond to repeated requests from Johnson's office for a status on whether they provided the ballots.
Michigan has more than 1,500 local clerks responsible for conducting elections.
"It is critical that our overseas and military members - who put their lives on the line every day to protect our freedom - get a right to participate in the very system they are protecting," she said in a statement.
The state Bureau of Elections sent at least three reminders to clerks before the 45-day deadline, Johnson said, and also has a calendar of dates to help clerks.
She has instructed clerks in the affected communities to immediately contact military and overseas voters and offer a new ballot if they did not get one.
Johnson said she will ask the Legislature to stiffen "administrative remedies" so federal lawsuits are not needed.
Absentee ballots for military and overseas voters can be provided by mail or email. Email saves clerks as much as two weeks in arrival and response times.
Clerks that missed the deadline - mostly township clerks - handle elections in counties such as Bay, Genesee, Kent, Van Buren, Muskegon and Kalamazoo.
For a list of municipalities that missed the deadline, click here. For a list of those that did give a status update to the state,
click here (pdf)
.
Democrats do this every election because Military types tend to vote conservative. You know, oopsie again and again and again...
Are they in any way personally liable?
A lot of these are bible belt solid conservative areas.
I haven’t got a clue but I do like the fact that she wants to stiffen the penalties here within the state.
BFD Nothing will be done. The votes won’t be counted and hussein will be doing his uluvating(sp?) because romney didn’t get the votes. It should be a crime to miss our GI’s.
So will these clerks be paying huge fines and going to prison for ten years per violation?
...Or something?
Sounds like she’ll be forcing them to accept the late ballots. I’m not sure what kind of penalties there are otherwise but it sounds like she wants stiffer penalties than are in place now.
One of the townships is just outside the largest Guard base in Michigan. Typical.
None here in Jackson county where the transportation unit is based.
One thing is for sure. The Justice department is not doing this for the Military. There must be a lot more fraudulent out of country votes coming in than Military ones. Or the military votes are being altered when received. Or there are a lot of imaginary military votes. This is part of the cheating machine. Otherwise the Justice department would be happy to see the military not vote.
Unfortunately, even if they get ballots they won’t be counted in any progressive state where the Sec. of State is a Democrat. They will be discarded because they have stray marks, the signatures crossed the lines, marks extended outside the boxes, or were held in the basement until after the election receipt date had passed.
You're probably right on that, but the surprise here is that the Obama-Holder (In)Justice Department is suing on this, seemingly taking up the cause for the military personnel whose ballots didn't go out on time - unless I'm missing something.
Good point there, which is precisely why George Soros has his Secretary of State project, spending big bucks to get 'Rats into SOS offices around the country.
But in Michigan, from which this story emanates, the SOS is a Pubbie, so that might not be a factor.
A lot of these are rock solid conservative townships. You don’t get any more conservative in Michigan than Hillsdale county.
Ruth Johnson actively ran against Soros and named him in ads as the backer of the SOS project and democrat candidate Jocelyn Benson.
She is truly the epitome of integrity and she treats both parties equally. I’m ready to make her governor.
Yes, I'm aware of Hillsdale College, one of the very few colleges in the US that refuses funding from government. Mark Levin regularly talks about them on his radio show.
So is the motivation of the Obama-Holder lawsuit primarily to embarrass and hassle the Michigan SOS and some of these local election clerks?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
