Fight “The Man” AND get a tan!
TWEETED today w/ form for volunteers to fill out and submit. Lawyers and non lawyers needed!
Head lawyer Marc Elias is busy! Looks from his twitter feed like he’s got election protection lawsuits not just in FL, but also in NC and VA. His team, Nelson’s team, STILL needs help in Florida thru Nov 19.
Earlier, Elias and Ron Klain tweeted calls for volunteers too. Elias has got suits going for DNC, DSCC, League of Women Voters, and Vote Vets, and I dont know who else… One suit by the congressional groups and Vote Vets is to turn back that horrendous law that the postmark doesn’t matter — only mailed ballots delivered by 7 PM on Election Day! If not received by then, postmark doesn’t count, vote gets trashed. This is bad enough during the best of times, but throw in the MAGAbomber’s postal upset and hurricane Michael… And then, it’s Florida, and it’s very deja vu 2000.
Some like to say that the voter is responsible for mailing in their ballot early enough, so too bad if it isnt counted. Well, how'd that work out for this very responsible voter, Kirk Nielsen? He’s a Floridian and former Miami New Times writer who mailed his ballot on Oct 29, EIGHT DAYS before the deadline. He mailed it at a Miami post office, FROM Miami TO Miami. He checked online on Election Day — not received. Checked again by phone the day after Election Day - not received. Not counted.
Miama New Times: Ballots Are Still Inside Opa-locka Post Office
The Opa-locka debacle might explain why one Miami-Dade voter’s ballot never made it to the elections office. Kirk Nielsen, a former New Times writer who lives just west of Coral Gables, says he mailed his ballot at a University of Miami post office October 29 but learned after Election Day it hadn’t been received.“Of course I wonder if my ballot is sitting in the Opa-locka mail facility, along with many others,” he says. “I hope there’s an investigation.”
Having voted by mail in several prior elections, Nielsen says he knew how to check the Miami-Dade elections website to see when his ballot arrived. When he checked on Tuesday afternoon, however, the site informed him that his ballot hadn't been received yet. Nielsen briefly considered driving to his polling place to fill out a provisional ballot but ultimately assured himself it was probably just a matter of the website not being updated.
When he called the elections office the next day, however, a representative told him his ballot wasn’t counted and had never even arrived.
And there's this (and a lot more — read the article, it sucks!) from the Miami Herald:
South Florida’s absentee-ballot blues: ‘I am infuriated that I was not able to vote’
Lindsay Lecour registered to vote in Surfside and mailed her ballot to Miami-Dade elections around Oct. 23. She didn’t check its status until after the election, only to realize it had not been received. “I have voted absentee for years but never confirmed online,” Lecour wrote. “I guess I just trusted the system to work! Naive.”
Some say that rules are rules, cant change them late in the game. What about laws are laws, like The Constitution, that says we get to have our votes counted (paraphrasing).
AMENDMENT XIV
Passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.
Note: Article I, section 2, of the Constitution was modified by section 2 of the 14th amendment.
Section 1.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The harm done by this vote-trashing law overrides letting it stand. This bad deadline would perhaps be excusable for some fledgling democracy that is still finding its way. It is inexcusable in a mail-in state, any state, in the United States in 2018. CA rightly sets a deadline for 30 days after the election. Florida does not even allow the entirety of Election Day! And I refer you back to the Miami Herald link I provided to see just how screwed up the mail-in ballot procedures went in Florida for way too many people who tried, responsibly, to cast their vote.
The system failed them. It failed all of us because what happens in Florida doesnt stay in Florida (eg, President GW Bush. The votes Scott would cast in the Senate. Etc.) It must be changed for THIS election’s results.