Military ballots may not be counted in Illinois

  Larry at Political Realities has written a couple of great posts on the issue of military ballots and the prospect that they will not be counted in the state of New York during the upcoming mid-term election.

 As Larry wrote in his posts, New York appears to be in violation of the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE) because they did not mail out absentee ballots to those serving our country overseas by the federally mandated deadline–as a result they may not be afforded the right to vote.

  I can’t even begin to put into words how horrifying  I find the prospect that our heroes who volunteer to serve this great nation, and in many cases put their lives on the line so that we may remain free, would be so  disregarded by election officials in any state that they wouldn’t be afforded the opportunity to participate in the process that they defend on a daily basis.

  But the story gets even worse as we have now learned that the state of New York is not alone in violating the most sacred of procedures in a constitutional republic to our military–the right to vote–because it now appears as if Illinois has also violated the MOVE act by not mailing out ballots to military personnel serving overseas. Veterans from Illinois serving overseas may not have their votes counted this November.

  I do not think that I am overstating this one bit when I claim that this is absolutely unforgivable and inexcusable. The notion that people who choose to serve this country may not be able to participate in the process to choose the people that will represent them due to an official’s incompetence or lackadaisical attitude can be considered nothing less than an abomination.