Jim, I'm sympathetic to the military people who are caught in the middle of this thing through no fault of their own, but I still maintain that they are being cynically used by both parties. Both sides are using arguments of convenience while claiming principle, and both sides don't give a fig about the actual voters, but only about getting elected. This is just as true of the Republicans as it is the Democrats.
There are enough examples of this to keep us here all day, but I'll just select one. We all know about the WPB voters who were confused by the butterfly ballots. We know that these ballots were designed by Democrats, and that they continued to use them in this election even though the rejection rates for them had been unusually high in the past. When the Democrats complained about the votes they lost, the Republicans were quick to point this out, and made sure it was trumpeted in the media. But other ballots have had unusually high rejection rates in past elections. Military absentee ballots have been routinely tossed out in prior elections for lack of a postmark. Nobody cared too much, because the election was already settled. The (mostly) Republican election officials who were tossing out these ballots also never did anything to see that this situation was corrected, either through a change to the legal requirements or through raising the awareness of Armed Forces personnel.
Of course the Democrats weren't able to make political hay out of this like the Republicans were in WPB. It's easy to make fun of elderly Bingo players, but the Armed Forces are held in such high regard that going anywhere near the issue is political suicide. The one thing which really disturbs me about all the Republican propaganda on this is that it leaves our soldiers overseas under the impression that they are being abandoned by the folks at home, an impression the Republicans are deliberately and cynically promoting. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Republicans have been able to get traction on this issue precisely because of the high standing of the Armed Forces in American public opinion. Republicans have certainly used this to their advantage, but I still have one question. Where were all the Republican chest beaters in prior years when these military ballots were being tossed out? Why didn't they take steps to correct the situation at that time so that in this election we don't have to compromise the integrity of the process which the Republicans supposedly held so dear in other circumstances, e.g. in throwing out legally requested recounts in West Palm Beach and Broward County? |
