Fairfax, VA - Senator Ken Cuccinelli, candidate for Attorney General, commended the decision by a federal judge that the Commonwealth of Virginia had violated the voting rights of thousands of Virginia military personnel and other overseas citizens under federal law.

On Thursday, October 15, 2009, U.S. District Judge Richard L. Williams, sitting in Richmond, ruled in McCain-Palin vs. Virginia State Board of Elections that Virginia failed to mail more than 2,000 absentee ballots to military personnel and other overseas citizens in time for their votes to be counted in last November’s presidential election, thus violating their rights under federal law. The law in question is the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), which guarantees citizens living abroad the right to vote absentee. To remedy this violation of federal law, the Court ordered the Commonwealth to count all otherwise proper ballots received by the Commonwealth within 30 days after the election.

“I am very pleased that Judge Williams has come to this decision,” Senator Cuccinelli stated. “It was a travesty that our military members were disenfranchised last November, and it is vitally important that we make sure this never happens again.” He continued, “Our military defends our nation and its’ citizenry, and it is the very least we can do to make sure that the voices of these brave men and women should be heard in our elections. As the next Attorney General, I will lead the push to put the legal structures in place to ensure Virginia’s military men and women that their votes will count in every election.”

This is not the first time that Senator Cuccinelli has been involved with protecting the voting rights of these military personnel. On October 6, 2009, Cuccinelli criticized the Kaine Administration for filing a legal brief (see http://www.cuccinelli.com/memo.pdf) that amazingly argued that because there is no statutory timeframe in place under federal law, the Commonwealth could mail absentee ballots to active duty service members right up to the day before an election. Of course, with the turnaround time in the mail for such ballots, those ballots would never be returned in time to be counted, thereby denying those military personnel the right to vote. Judge Williams’ decision on the 15th largely confirmed Senator Cuccinelli’s position.

DPortM said on 17 Oct 2009 at 5:37 am:

Excellent news….

A federal judge ruled Friday that Virginia violated the voting rights of military service members and other Americans living overseas when electoral officials failed to send them ballots for last year’s presidential election on time….

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/17/judge-va-violated-absentee-voters-rights/?feat=home_headlines

http://george.loper.org/~george/archives/2009/Sep/971.html

What can I say, Nova Scout. How about … Train Wreck.

One needy, grim train wreck of an egomaniac on display. How do you like them apples.

Nothing more boring than someone expecting affirmative attention wherever he goes. Who is obnoxious, patronizing, condescending, presumptuous, incoherent, uncreative, and has a massive ego. Nothing more pointless than an anonymous blogger saying “Don’t blindly follow a blog! I’m the blogger you need to follow! Follow me - take me at face value! And I’ll set you free!” Pathetic.

My life, pursuits, investigations, obligations etc. span well beyond the one dimensional limits of this (or any other) blog - the same can surely be said for the blogs proprietor and readership.

Generally enjoy reading your posts - you raise some interesting points worthy of consideration and debate. But Holy Smokes, that is one ugly case of ego bloat you’ve got going there and I am wholly unqualified to help free you from your impediment. The good news; there is professional help available. I don’t know you from a can of paint, but all too often you simply come off more like a pompous, supercilious, self-important, blowhard know-it-all than anything else.

The time sensitive topic at hand - of denying those eligible voters who serve in the U.S. military their voting rights - is utterly unacceptable as well as preventable. And that goes for whomever is playing political cat and mouse games regarding this issue.

I’ve contacted the AG’s office - ongoing case - no comment at this time - gave them my contact info.

Perhaps you will have better luck.

Another one bites the dust. I love picking you libs apart piece by piece. You don’t need to write paragraphs in response to my questions. But, you need to in order to muddy the water in hopes of not being pinned down. You basically want an unlimited number of illegals to come into the Nation. That, my son, is the position of obama and the libs. They are once again gearing up to push amnesty onto the Country, when we have 10% plus unemployment. Nice that you support policies that hurt Americans, but I guess that the lib in you.

I try to help the best I can, but if I do all the work for everyone around here, you’ll never improve yourselves.

Bridget - what is the position of the Republican AG’s office in this litigation?

What’s stopping you from contacting his office to find out for yourself.

Anon 2343, the obvious reason that immigration (legal or illegal) occurs in any direction (in Europe in the late 20th century it was East-West, as well as South-North) is because there is a disparity of economic conditions in a given direction. I would have thought that quite clear. Do you have a different theory? A low-skilled Mexican from Chiapas is not going to bestir himself to run off to Honduras, I wouldn’t think, no matter how tight or lax border controls might be. If you were without a job you would not go to an area with similar economic conditions to the one where you were having troubles. You’d go to where you could do better. The direction is meaningless. It is the disparity of economic conditions that drives immigration.

Dems will make any effort to disenfranchise the military voters - voter obstruction for military is an A-OK tactic - while simultaneously squawking about the injustice of felons and aliens being discriminated against, under served, underrepresented and disenfranchised.

Dems are actively pursuing the vote for and from convicted felons and foreign nationals.

http://www.vdare.com/malkin/illegals_swing_vote.htm

I do think it’s somewhat disingenuous for anyone in the GOP from any state to express shock or surprise over tactic that has been utilized over and over again. As poster Fiberal stated here:

“This is a state republican leadership problem.

Everyone knows democrats will disenfranchise the military. And in VA everyone knows what scumbags the left are– and the left knows they themselves are scumbags.
This is the responsibility of VA republican legislators to clean this up by playing the democrat’s game better— with a flood of rabid attorneys and going ballistic on the dumocraps 4-5 times an hour.

Seriously, if the republicans had any kind of back bone at all, knowing what happened in FL, they would never have let it get this far.”

http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2009/10/democrats_disen.html

http://vagopcaucus.blogspot.com/2009/01/allowing-no-excuse-absentee-voting-more.html

Do you ever wonder why the Mexicans and Central Americans head north instead of south in their desire to “provide for their families?” Hmmmmmm!
Wouldn’t they be better off going south where language is not a barrier and they are closer to their own social groups? Maybe it’s due to the fact that the South American countries CONTROL their borders and keep out uneducated and unskilled labor.

It appears to me that our current immigration system is geared towards an oversupply of unskilled workers, as evidenced by any 7-11 parking lot in the area.

Hmmmmm! And I though that they were all construction engineers and landscape designers. Oh me!

CoM - I’m also beginning to think your problem is that you don’t read very well. I can’t come up with any other explanation. By all means, we support the troops. And of course anyone can support the troops and criticize the decision to go to war in Iraq. What’s the issue there? Even the liberal Democrats are taking pains to say that before they launch their attacks on policy. Whether they are sincere is another matter, but it is a great contrast to the days of my early adulthood and the Viet Nam debate, when, in some circles, military service was a kind of stigma.

You ask about border control. Again, I think you just don’t read well. Immigration reform in this age includes measures that give us better control of the borders. This is a national security issue that needs attention even if there were not an illegal immigration issue. So I simply don’t follow your last comment.

In a sensible immigration policy context, upswings in domestic unemployment would simply mean that there would be fewer jobs to attract foreign workers. So the answer to your query is that higher unemployment rates will impact immigration. I think that is just common sense. We have seen this happening over the past year or so. At the high skill end, particularly in the sciences and medicine, where we are very deficient, there probably will be a need under any economic conditions for the foreseeable future. Recession economics impacts the low-end need more. Liberals like you tend to see immigration through protectionist economic lenses. We conservatives understand that the best economic result, and the result that consequently strengthens economic outcomes in the overall interests of the nation is that which admits to as few impediments to the free flow of capital and labor as possible. Such a system stimulates quicker recovery and sustains economic vitality. Of course, it goes without saying that the more other nations adopt similar policies, the better off everyone will be.

You can look up the number of legal immigrants on-line. I don’t have to do that for you (I hope). I don’t have a specific numerical limit in mind on numbers of legal immigrants. I don’t think it makes much sense to try to derive such a number. It probably makes more sense to examine the need sector by sector.

Now, having indulged you and Bridget (my patience is boundless), let’s get back to the topic at hand. Do you think that the lawsuit in the post reflects Tim Kaine consciously wanting to disadvantage US men and women in uniform deployed overseas for partisan political advantage? Or, is it possible that there is a non=partisan explanation for the action of the state and that the non-partisan nature is reflected in the fact that the position of the individual defendants is congruent with the position of the Commonwealth and the Elections Board? Is it possible that the position of the Commonwealth really does not reflect anti-military bias by Mr. Kaine, but instead reflects an internal consensus arrived at between the Board of Elections and the AG’s office that the procedures under attack can be defended? Do you think Senator Cuccinelli’s expressed horror at the situation is sincere, or election year dramatics? Or none of the above? Or all of the above?

I hope that helps.

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/x430403184/Illegal-immigrant-voting-a-reality-in-some-states

http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecentersb9dc

http://www.examiner.com/x-2684-Law-Enforcement-Examiner~y2009m7d6-Voter-fraud-by-illegal-aliens-ignored-by-government-and-media

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Legalissues/lm28.cfm

Nice dodge on the “original” topic. You either have to call out the Dems for their treatment of our military, or you as I said in the my first post, are a Dem and just want to ignore having to provide the answer. I asked, if you can tell the difference and admit there is a difference between supporting the troops and realizing the Iraq war might not have been started for the best of reasons.

Can you tell us how many legal immigrants enter our Country each year? Please give us a static number of legal immigrants you would support entering the Nation. With the unemployment rate toward 10% does that have any impact on your opinion of illegal or legal immigration?

You seem to think by passing immigration reform it somehow end the need to have border control, and an end to illegal immigration.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2352212/posts

Another side to that argument is that many countries, many being the least developed nations, are losing the contest for their citizens via brain drain and are much poorer for it.

http://www.vdare.com/letters/tl_122807.htm

http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/070327_nd.htm

NS omits that importing skilled labor is also a real cheap way to cut out American trained engineers, doctors and other technical types.

NS omits mentioning that as much as we in the states need people of a high skill level in a wide variety of technical, medical and scientific fields - So do the nations from which we might draw them away from.

NS omits any concern for our native born college graduates - who are displaced and suffer lost wages due to competition with immigrants with similar education levels.

http://www.vdare.com/nachman/080729_immigration.htm

Can you imagine a brainy kid - one with the potential to survive the rigors of medical school and become a brain surgeon - in a far off land, concerned that their government immigration policies might make it possible for a foreigner to take their place?

As my children are now much closer to adulthood than infancy, they, along with their many friends naturally talk about education and career choices…attempt to answer the age old question of “what will you be when you grow up?’ That heavy conversation must now include the many fields of study and potential career choices that could someday be handed over to a foreign import. Should an American kid invest in becoming a physicist if down the line his government will allow the import of a cheaper replacement.

http://www.vdare.com/burns/070611_pi.htm

“African countries continually lose a significant number of trained nationals, who decide to emigrate and live abroad in search of higher incomes and a better standard of living, among a host of other reasons. Between 1974 and 1985, for example, an average of 12,146 technical and professional personnel per year (computed from data collected by Logan ) were admitted to the United States from various countries in Africa. Between 1993 and 1995, the United States admitted 32,317 of the continent’s skilled human re-sources. And, according to the World Bank Group, nearly 70,000 qualified Africans leave their home countries every year to work in industrialized nations.
Clearly, this is a significant loss to a continent that is in dire need of skilled professionals to facilitate and expedite the process of socio-economic development. Without large pools of such pro-fessionals, African countries are not likely to attain meaningful le-vels of economic growth, development and competitiveness.
In this discussion, an attempt is made to discern the causes, ad-verse effects and positive side of the emigration of Africa’s techni-cal and professional personnel, and to suggest viable ways and means of addressing the cancerous problem.”

Cuccinelli to Push for Changes In Military Absentee Voting Laws

Efforts require uniformity - some registrars don’t mail ballots to active duty service members in time for them to vote

FAIRFAX, VA — Ken Cuccinelli today reiterated his support to enact legislation in January that would require all registrars in the Commonwealth to keep to strict timelines for the mailing and processing of active duty military absentee ballots.

“There is an immediate need to address issues related to active duty service members and whether their votes are being counted” said State Senator Ken Cuccinelli. “In last year’s Presidential election, several counties in the Commonwealth mailed ballots to active duty service members so late that there was no practical way that the ballots would be returned on time to be counted. This effective denial of the right to vote of those who are defending us around the world must end,” said Cuccinelli. “As Virginia’s next Attorney General, I will lead the push put legal structures in place to ensure Virginia’s military men and women that their votes will count in every election.”

As recently as last month, the Kaine Administration, in a legal brief in the McCain-Palin vs. Virginia State Board of Elections (Cunningham) filed in the Eastern District of Virginia (http://www.cuccinelli.com/memo.pdf), amazingly argued that because there is no statutory timeframe in place under federal law, they could mail absentee ballots to active duty service members right up to the day before an election. Of course, with the turnaround time in the mail for such ballots, those ballots would never be returned in time to be counted, thereby denying those military members the right to vote.

“Rather than seeking immediate reliefto ensure that active duty military members have their votes counted, the Kaine Administration is making a technical legal argument that, if true, would still leave military members without a practical opportunity to vote” added Cuccinelli. “It’s just unbelievable to me that theGovernor of Virginia, who is also the Chairman of the Democrat National Committee, would place such a low priority on the voting rights of active duty military members. This is a mindset that will change should I be elected Attorney General,” concluded Cuccinelli.

Senator Cuccinelli pointed out that ensuring the rights of our military members to vote was point five of his five point plan to better equip Virginia to provide for our Veterans and active duty military members. To review that plan, jointly presented with Paul Galanti, Roger Sullivan, and Joe McCain, click here: http://www.Cuccinelli.com/press_veterans.htm.

Now, have we cleared up whether the AG’s office is supporting the position of the individual defendants in the US suit against the Board of Elections?

Are you having any success with getting back on the subject of the original post?