Gotta love these guys:
This just in from Columbia County: when Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s absentee ballot came up in the queue, the poll watchers for Jim Tedisco objected to it, saying the senator was in the county on election day and should have voted in person.
But, but but…. ACORN!
(via email)
enrico
Absolutely amazing. If you wanted to call media attention to your own party’s obstructionism of the ballot counting process, the one thing you would do is challenge the legitimate ballot of a sitting U.S Senator.
Darwin was right….
demkat620
Very nice. They are beyond spoofable.
gizmo
I think the GOP operatives in the 20th District know that the math doesn’t add up for their side, so they are just taking a childish and vindictive attitude and are playing to their base.
"Screw Gillibrand, we’ll challenge her ballot, too. That’ll show ’em! We’re manly men, and we don’t take no shit from nobody!"
MattF
This is a joke, right? Like, there’s something… insincere about voting via absentee ballot– and we’re only letting people vote that way out of the goodness of our hearts. Bizarre.
smiley
Not going to work, of course, but given how razor thin Murphy’s lead is, can you blame them for being desperate? Tedisco’s win was supposed to represent the resurrection of the republican party. They’re worried.
Edited
Michael
Damn.
Just damn.
Zifnab
Even sitting Democratic US Senators are engaging in voter fraud. How much more proof do you need before you’ll see that this whole election was rigged?! It was stolen! Government conspiracy! Black Helicopters! Der gonna taker guuns!
I’m going to run around outside with a bag full of tea, hitting people in the face until they see reason.
Keith
It’s Kirsten Gillibrand’s own fault for not being able to see into the future to know that her job would not, on this occasion, prevent her from being in the county on election day.
Seriously, though, is there some legal requirement that if you vote absentee, you have to leave the county on election day, or are they just using the "Shut up, that’s why" gambit?
TenguPhule
At what point do we admit we have one political party and a fifth column of facist GOP traitors?
TenguPhule
Yes.
SATSQ.
The Moar You Know
Oddly enough, I’m finding it really hard to love them.
NonyNony
@Keith:
I’m assuming that since he’s making the objection, New York must have a stupid "you can only get an absentee ballot if you have a good reason" law on the books. It looks to me like Tedisco is trying to say that since she obtained an absentee ballot even though she shouldn’t have gotten one, the ballot shouldn’t count even if she is a legitimate voter.
Ohio used to have such a law. We now have no-excuse-necessary absentee voting and it is awesome. Republicans hate it, though, because it makes it easier for people to vote. They can’t say that, of course, so they say things like it "promotes voter fraud" or other nonsense.
Leelee for Obama
@TenguPhule:
I did that shortly after the Party of No firmly established its bona fides during the Stimulous battle. I, once again, am glad that Jacob Javits, Dwight Eisenhower and even Barry Goldwater are not here to see this. It’s pitiable beyond measure.
Punchy
Until she shows her birth certy, there’s just no way of knowing if she’s even a citizen who’s allowed to vote.
Cant be having all them illegal brown folk and broads out messing up the election.
Martin
No, but there is a legal requirement in some places that if you have requested an absentee ballot that you cannot show up at the polling place – the register will show that you have already voted. You could cast a provisional, but that’s hardly an improvement to the situation.
And let them try that argument with a judge who will likely point out that usually every poll worker votes absentee so that they can work the polls, not only being in the county, but quite often in the room on election day.
Just Some Fuckhead
If yer finger ain’t purple, it never happened bitches!
Rosali
NYS Bd of Elections:
Qualifications to Vote by Absentee Ballot
* unavoidably absent from your county or, if a resident of the city of New York absent from said city, on Election Day;
* unable to appear at the polls due to illness or disability;
* a patient in a Veterans’ Administration Hospital;
* detained in jail awaiting Grand Jury action or confined in prison after conviction for an offense other than a felony;
Keith
@Rosali:
Ahh, I’m mistaking absentee voting for early voting, the thinking being, during the weeks before an election, how would I know whether or not I’m going ot be sick on election day (or in Gillibrand’s case, how would she know whether or not a senatorial duty would come up – not farfetched for a member of the Dem party on election day)
I’ve never done either, so the mechanisms of both are unfamiliar to me.
Aqualad
You need an excuse to GET the ballot in New York…you do NOT need an excuse to turn it in and have it counted…if you believe there is a chance you will not be in district that day but it turns out after the fact you are, the ballot counts anyway as long as you don’t show up and try to vote again…
Pathetic…I would assume that sitting Senators who work in Washington have very valid reasons to request and turn in absentee ballots…the GOP is teh stupid…
Rosali
The absentee application simply requires the applicant to certify, in good faith, that she expects to be absent on election day. Given the mailing time that the voter should allow for her ballot to be delivered, it’s entirely possible that she expected to be absent but then happened to be in the county on election day.
gizmo
It’s worth noting that Tedisco wouldn’t be succeeding with all of his bullshit challenges to the absentee ballots if the Republican BOE officials weren’t ratifying his challenges. The way it works is that either campaign can challenge a ballot, and then the Democratic Commissioner and the Republican Commission rule one way or the other. If either of them vote to uphold the challenge, then the ballot is set aside and will be ruled on by a judge. What’s been happening is that the GOP election officials have been consistently upholding Tedisco’s challenges, regardless of the fact that they are without merit.
Dennis-SGMM
We’ll have to see if Norm Coleman’s lawyers have the time to take on Tedisco.
torrentprime
Let’s not forget the funny-yet-terrifying (like so much of the GOP lately) talking points on FOX last year between two of the talking heads as to why it’s ok for them to vote absentee (with their important jobs and all) but all the rest of the
coloredpeople who haven’t voted yet should just gosh darn wait until Election Day because there’s just no need to vote early. The fact that they are speaking over footage of 8 hour lines, clearly indicating that Election Day won’t *begin* to be able to handle to crush of voters, will be lost on most viewers, of course.merl
i’ve been voting absentee so long i’ve forgotten where the polling station is
Steve T.
I’d like to petition Barbara Broccoli and EON Productions and have them replace SPECTRE with ACORN for the next James Bond movie. The middle-aged, emotionally adolescent, armchair wannabe hero crowd (their target demographic) would have mass orgasms at the very thought.