Posted on 11/06/2008 11:25:18 AM PST by COUNTrecount
Although Barack Obama’s maternal grandmother passed away late Sunday night, Hawaii’s chief elections officer says the absentee ballot she cast on Oct. 27 will still count in today’s election. At the risk of being callous about this sad story, the subject of whether Madelyn Dunham’s vote should count is open to interpretation.
A similar case cropped up during the Democratic primary, when a South Dakota woman named Florence Steen voted by absentee ballot for Hillary Clinton but passed away prior to the state’s June 3 primary. (Clinton thanked Steen by name during a victory speech in West Virginia.) As Slate reported in a May 14 "Explainer," Steen’s vote was not counted; South Dakota law allows for the fairly quick and efficient removal of such ballots. States vary on how they handle this situation.
After Slate re-posted that column today in response to news that Dunham’s vote would count, reader Jon Cohen e-mailed me to point out that Hawaii’s election law contains a provision similar to South Dakota’s. Section 15-13 of the state election law’s chapter on absentee voters (PDF) explicit states that:
Whenever sufficient proof is shown to the clerk that an absentee voter who has returned the voter's return envelope has died prior to the opening of the polls on the date of election, the voter's ballot shall be deemed invalid and disposed of pursuant to section 11-154.
So why was Dunham’s vote allowed to count?
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
Didn’t Missouri elect the dead Carnahan.
Now that Chicago thugs are in control, her votes will count for many elections to come.
Count it.
Maybe after being snubbed by Barry for many many years, and thrown under the bus for being a typical white person, she voted for the white guy, McCain.
How about his Boston aunt’s vote?
In Indiana, Hawaii, Illinois, Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, and probably VA.
Disgraceful.A dead person....a person who is *known* to have been dead at 11:59PM of 11/3(EST)...is allowed to vote.Oh well,it’s not much worse that the tens of thousands of illegals who voted in the swing states.NV,CO,NM....not to mention VA,NC and FL....
It was on the news in Boston.She voted.
Four times.
(Only kidding)
This is a rather ghoulish article. If I sent an absentee ballot and died before the election, I’d want my vote to count too. It’s certainly not something I’d make a big deal about.
LAND OF THE VOTING DEAD.
Indeed. With so many votes being cast in the names of people who have been dead for years, and still counted, election officials have much more urgent uses for their time than to be picking out and discarding ballots from people who died between the time their absentee ballots were postmarked and the opening of the polls on Election Day.
That is if she wasn’t already in a coma when she “cast a ballot”.
If a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan voted absentee and then was KIA before election day, would you consider it "disgraceful" for their ballot to be counted?
OK...a valid question.No,I certainly wouldn't consider it "disgraceful"...or anything like it.But I'm not sure it should be counted.
Apart from the voting issue, does anyone think it odd that Obama didn’t travel back to Hawaii after she died. Was there a memorial or funeral? The whole thing seems strange to me.
I was thinking the same thing. Has anyone heard if he is going to the funeral? Involved in the arrangements? Or was his trip all along about the birth certificate?
Here it is said HE is making plans this weekend for funeral: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2128999/posts
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