UH-OH: Massachusetts Sec. of State Has History of Playing Games With Absentee Ballots

The latest polls show the race for Massachusetts Senator is too close to call. Looking at the history of the state's entrenched Democratic political machine, if Republican Scott Brown wins,  he better win big, as the Massachusetts Secretary of State has been known to play  fast and loose with absentee ballots. In 2008 was found to have violated the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act passed in 2002, in which he failed to report and collect the number sent and the number returned of absentee ballots from overseas Military personnel registered to vote in Massachusetts. After an investigation by the US Justice Department, a settlement was reached to force Galvin to comply with the law.

The Justice Department announced today that it has reached a settlement agreement with Massachusetts Secretary of State William Francis Galvin, to remedy violations of the Uniformed Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). UOCAVA is designed to ensure that uniformed military members and overseas citizens can effectively participate in federal elections. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, through its Secretary of State, is responsible for collecting and reporting the number of military voters and overseas citizens who are sent ballots, who return ballots, and who have the ballots successfully cast in each federal general election. Massachusetts has failed to fulfill this important legal obligation since UOCAVA was enacted in 2002.

"Accurate and complete information about whether our uniformed service members and overseas citizens are being given an effective opportunity to have their votes counted is essential to our democratic system of government," said Grace Chung Becker, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. "Without it, Congress and the public cannot determine whether states are fulfilling their obligations to let uniformed service members and overseas citizens fully participate in our elections. 

 As military absentee ballots tend to be more Republican than others, it is not to the advantage of Gavin's Democratic party to count the ballots of those who are overseas sacrificing themselves to protect his family.

Apparently Galvin has had a cynical change of heart. As Michael Graham reported in the Boston Herald:

In what must be a new low, even for Massachusetts, Secretary of State Bill Galvin told the Herald the election will not be considered complete by his office until Jan. 29, when 10 days have been allowed for absentee and military ballots to arrive. That’s 10 extra days for Senate liberals to shove ObamaCare down an unwilling electorate’s throat - and about eight days longer than it took Rep. Niki Tsongas to get sworn in after her special election victory.

What makes Galvin’s play so repugnant is that the U.S. Department of Justice had to threaten to sue him to get him to comply with federal laws protecting the voting rights of military members abroad. For years, Galvin ignored these ballots - and the soldiers, airmen and Marines who cast them - and now he’s prepared to use them to deny the will of the people if, by some miracle, Scott Brown wins.

 I would not be shocked if the Massachusetts Democratic party has some ACORN workers in  an office right now filling out absentee ballots with different pen colors, or different hand writing.

Scott Brown should be very concerned, if he wins by a squeaker, a few thousand  hundred absentee ballots could turn it the other way, or if his margin is too big to fraudulently give it to his opponent, Galvin could (as he hinted to the Boston Herald) delay certifying the election until Obamacare is passed.

Apparently Barney Frank is very angry about the suggestions that the Mass. Democratic party would consider playing fast and loose with the election...Kerry Picket has the story.

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