Posted on 05/28/2002 6:28:13 PM PDT by knak
Good point! My brother who was overseas in the military didn't even get his ballot until the end of November.
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Is it just me, or am I wrong to think that people should know our language before they can vote? How can you read the Constituition, listen to candidates debate, etc, if you don't know the language?
Hint: the same party that approved the oh-so-difficult butterfly ballot.
See http://www.fadetoblack.com/floriduh/.
"On Tuesday November 7th, 2000 millions of giddy and excited Americans patriotically shuffled to the voting booths to cast their votes for the next President of the United States. Overnight, it became clear we had a close race on our hands between the Presidential hopefuls Al Gore and George W. Bush. So close in fact, that it all comes down to the state of Florida -- the winner of this state becomes our next President.
Late in the day of November 8th, George W. Bush pulled away with a significant lead and will most likely go on to win. But wait! It was around this time a number of Al Gore supporters in Palm Beach, Florida stepped dutifully forward to say they were "confused" by the ballots and began demanding they be allowed to recast their votes.
Always pursuing both sides of the story, we got ourselves a copy of the Official Ballot of Florida, the one you see below:
Although it appears rather obvious, even with this low quality reproduction, one only needs to follow the arrow next to the candidate of your choice and punch a hole to cast your vote. Apparently, many Floridians were terribly baffled by these simple instructions. Shortly after the news broke, many Democrats, including Jesse Jackson (who seems always available for comment) came down to raise "awareness" of this grave injustice.
By Thursday, November 9th, lawsuits against the ballot started filing into the courts asking for an official "do over".
At the time of this article, we sit and wait for the recount and for the courts to hear the case of the "baffling ballot".
In the meantime, we decided to take matters in our own hands. We are simply not sure if we're missing something here, so we decided to conduct our own test. We asked a small group of children, too young to officially take part in the Nation's election, to cast their votes using the same Official Ballot the people in Palm Beach used, and sought to find out how they handled themselves.
The Test
The test was rather straightforward. We showed each child the ballot and explained to them the instructions and asked them to find the right candidate and mark appropriate circle. To make the test a bit more strenuous and to simulate as close as possible the actual voting experience, we told each child as they were presented with the ballot to cast their vote for Al Gore. This seemed to be the hurdle that many of the people from Florida had difficulty with."
[snip]
The result of the test was that all of the children were able to cast votes with no problems, except for a three year old who did not yet know how to read.
Wouldn't that be expected since Boyd is the head of the Civil Rights Division? He should be the litigating attorney I'd think.
Literacy and Educational Requirements
Unless physically unable to do so, an applicant for naturalization must be able to speak and understand simple English as well as read and write it. However, if on the date of the examination the applicant is more than 50 years of age and has been a lawful permanent resident for 20 years or more, or the applicant is more than 55 years of age and has been a lawful permanent resident for 15 years or more, the applicant will be exempt from the English language requirement of the law. If exempt, the applicant may take the examination in any language.
All applicants physically able to write, must also be able to sign their names in the English language. However, the person mentioned above who is excused from knowing English is permitted to sign in a foreign language if unable to sign in English.
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