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Election '10: The de facto disenfranchisement of soldiers by an incompetent Board of Elections is a shameful slap in the face of those who are fighting and dying in two wars to protect our right to vote and theirs. There's no excuse for this. None. The failure of the state of New York's Board of Elections to send out absentee ballots to the state's military and overseas voters, even after being granted a federal extension under the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act, is made worse by the fact that New York City on 9/11 was the Pearl Harbor...

Election '10: The Department of Justice is failing to enforce a law that protects the voting rights of soldiers overseas. They're allowed to fight and die for their country, but they can't vote for its leaders? Last Saturday was the deadline under the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE) for states to have sent unmarked absentee ballots to soldiers overseas so they can exercise the same right to vote as those they risk their lives to protect, including Afghans and Iraqis. The MOVE Act, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support last year, says states must provide overseas ballots 45 days...

The New York State Board of Elections expects to get hit as early as Tuesday with a court order from the U.S. Department of Justice targeting counties violating a federal law that protects military voters, the state board’s chairman told FoxNews.com.

The Obama Justice Department can put an end to the scandal surrounding the New Black Panther voter-intimidation case. All Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. would have to do is allow members of his Voting Rights Section to answer a few simple questions under oath, without waiving a single legal privilege.On Friday, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights approved two letters to Mr. Holder. Both ask, again, for more cooperation than the Justice Department has provided for 16 months. The commission is seeking information about an alleged "broad culture of hostility to race-neutral enforcement of the civil rights laws;...

   Barely three weeks before the election, the Department of Justice has opened "urgent" discussions with New York.  New York has failed to mail ballots to military voters.  This is the latest breakdown in DOJ enforcement of the MOVE Act. The MOVE Act required ballots to mail out on September 18.  New York obtained a waiver allowing the ballots to mail October 1.  But that didn't happen across a sizeable portion of the Empire State - including all of New York City and Westchester County.  On October 2, the failure to comply with the deadline should have been known.  Fox...

The crack Department of Justice unit set up to protect military voters is beginning to resemble the Keystone Kops operation of 2008. The latest: DOJ's complete failure to ensure that military voters get their 2010 ballots on time. The crack Department of Justice unit set up to protect military voters is beginning to resemble the Keystone Kops operation of 2008.  It turns out that after they concluded that all the military ballots in Illinois went out on time, they were wrong. In fact, ballots in one of the largest counties in the state, St. Clair County, did not go out...

The Justice Department is living down to its reputation for not caring about protecting voting rights of military personnel. With 20 full-time attorneys supposedly on the task, it has failed to do as much for military voters as a ragtag team of volunteer law students has accomplished. The department's inaction is suspicious.For months, critics have charged Justice with being reluctant to enforce the 2009 Military and Overseas Voter Enforcement Act (MOVE Act), probably because the Obama political team suspects that soldiers tend to vote Republican. The MOVE Act requires states to mail ballots at least 45 days before Election...

When Department of Justice attorneys traveled to investigate a voter intimidation allegation against a black politician in Mississippi's Noxubee County in 2006, one civil rights staff attorney commented, "Can you believe we're going to Mississippi to protect white voters?" To Christopher Coates, the former head of the Department of Justice's voting rights section, the comment was more than just an attempt at irony – it was evidence that something was going wrong in the department.

We no longer must consult history for a lawyer-hero willing to take personal risk for sacred principles such as the rule of law and racial equality. Our age can claim Christopher Coates. It has been a very bad week for the dwindling number of people defending the dismissal of the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party by Eric Holder’s Justice Department. Today might have been the worst day of all. Former Voting Section Chief Christopher Coates testified to the United States Civil Rights Commission that Obama political appointees dismissed the case because they are opposed to enforcing...

The Justice Department is ignoring civil rights cases that involve white victims and wrongly abandoned a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party last year, a top department official testified Friday. He called the department's conduct a "travesty of justice." Christopher Coates, former voting chief for the department's Civil Rights Division, spoke under oath Friday morning before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, in a long-awaited appearance that had been stonewalled by the Justice Department for nearly a year. Coates discussed in depth the DOJ's decision to dismiss intimidation charges against New Black Panther members who were videotaped...

PJTV is broadcasting the testimony of Christopher Coates to the Civil Rights Commission live this morning, but they already have his opening statement available in PDF format at Pajamas Media. It contains at least one bombshell, which is that Obama appointee Loretta King ordered Coates to stop asking applicants whether they supported race-neutral enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The question became necessary because of resistance in the Civil Rights division from career attorneys to enforce the law when it resulted in African-American defendants rather than victims, an attitude that Coates first encountered in the Bush era:

The news that Christopher Coates, former chief of the Justice Department’s Voting Section, is set to testify Friday before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is crucial to the panel’s investigation of allegations that the Obama administration has not enforced the nation’s civil rights laws in a race-neutral manner.

DOJ military voting enforcement: failed to give the full measure of their devotion The mess surrounding 2010 military voting rights enforcement is coming to a rotten conclusion. On Friday the DOJ announced settlements against states that were not in compliance with the MOVE Act. Friday was the day before ballots were required to go overseas to military voters. In some of the settlements, the ballots aren’t going to go on time. These Friday news releases are becoming a pattern. On Friday, Justice Department reached agreements with Hawaii, Colorado, D.C. and the Virgin Islands in response to their failure to comply with...

Complete title: Justice Department Reaches Agreement to Protect Rights of Military and Overseas Voters in Alaska WASHINGTON – The Justice Department today announced that it has reached an agreement with Alaska officials to help ensure that military service members and other U.S. citizens living overseas have an opportunity to participate fully in the Nov. 2, 2010, federal general election. The agreement was necessary to ensure Alaska’s compliance with the 2009 Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE Act). The agreement provides Alaska will expedite the candidate certification procedures for its Aug. 24, 2010, primary election so that it is able...

This is a disgrace, plain and simple. Military voters, their families, and veterans organizations should be outraged at the Holder DOJ. It is 2008 all over again. Today the Department of Justice effectively rewrote the 2009 MOVE Act designed to protect military voters. In a settlement reached with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, the Holder Justice Department allowed Wisconsin to mail ballots to overseas military voters only 32 days before the election, instead of the statutorily mandated 45 days. Once again, it is no accident this embarrassing settlement is being released on a Friday, so fewer might notice.The Pentagon had...

The Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Board of Elections today can stare down the increasingly rogue voting rights section of the U.S. Department of Justice, which continues to play ethnic politics nationwide. The state of Georgia recently forced the department to back off from its bullying tactics, and this Buckeye county should do the same. Justice officials have threatened legal action against the county board unless it prints all its ballots in bilingual fashion. "With additional requirements for translators, community outreach, additional staffing and printing, the demand potentially would double the county's election costs," board member Rob Frost told Jennifer Rubin of...

The Justice Department should file suit this week against dozens of states that appear not to be in compliance with a 2009 law to ensure voting rights for military personnel stationed abroad. Failure to file suit will expose the Obama administration's lack of commitment to military voting. On Friday, after consultation with Justice, the Department of Defense granted waivers exempting five states from the law's requirement that absentee ballots be mailed to personnel abroad at least 45 days before the Nov. 2 election. Waivers may be granted only if a state can explain how it can absolutely guarantee the timely...

Protecting the rights of active duty military to have their vote counted is apparently not a priority for this administration. In Washington, politicians always like to release bad news on a Friday, as fewer people notice. Today, the Pentagon announced that it had granted the waiver requests of five states seeking to escape requirements to protect military voters. I have written previously here at PJM that all waiver requests should be denied. Unfortunately, if you are an overseas servicemember from Delaware, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, or Washington, the protections in the MOVE Act aren’t going to apply to you...

Sens. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Michael Bennet of Colorado are just two incumbents locked in tight re-election races in states where local officials have warned they will likely not be able to ship out general election ballots to overseas military voters by the Sept. 18 deadline. Both Democrats' race are listed as "toss-ups" by RealClearPolitics.com, and military ballots could make the difference. But Wisconsin and Colorado are among 10 states where local officials say they may not be able to comply with Move Act provisions that call for ballots to be mailed out at least 45 days before the...

Twelve states want waivers from having to send ballots to overseas military on time. Call the Pentagon and the DOJ today, and demand they say no. Decisions by Washington bureaucrats over the next four weeks will have a profound impact on the upcoming November elections. These bureaucrats will decide whether or not those serving in the military from twelve states will have a full and effective opportunity to participate. If they choose to do anything other than aggressively enforce federal laws protecting military voters, many of those serving our nation won’t have a voice.Every American can do something about it.As...