A left-wing organization with ties to both the Clinton and Obama camps has called for tighter election security in the wake of the Russian tampering probe. So, they want to make it tougher on military personnel stationed overseas from voting.
This group has, for years claiming voter suppression and now they want to do the same thing to the military, saying military members should be banned from voting via email or fax.
One state that allows such vote casting is Colorado. The center called on the state to “prohibit voters stationed or living overseas from returning voted ballots electronically.”
“Regardless of the state’s secure ballot return system for electronically voted ballots, we recommend that all voted ballots be returned by mail or delivered in person,” said the 245-page report.
Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams defended the practice, saying the state has incorporated safeguards to protect the integrity of ballots cast by military personnel living overseas.
“They don’t believe someone who works on a submarine should be allowed to vote. We do,” the Republican said in a statement.
Conservatives were quick to blast the report’s recommendation as unworkable and politically motivated.
“Perhaps they think that Navy SEALs can swim ballots ashore, hand them off to Army paratroopers who can parachute into Colorado to drop off the ballots?” asked the conservative website Colorado Peak Politics.
“You can bet that if the military historically voted Democrat instead of Republican, the Center for American Progress would not have a problem with it,” Peak said in a Monday post.
For an organization founded by former Clinton and Obama White House advisor John Podesta that has stood for granting more and better voter access, this action is a definite about-face. They have opposed state efforts to scale back early voting periods, remove inactive voters from rolls and especially fight any attempt to require government-issued photo identification to cast ballots.
But now they want to restrict military voter’s rights. Why? One Conservative, J.Christian Adams of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, said this shouldn’t be a surprise, given military members’ voting history.
“CAP would oppose that because they don’t like that the military votes against their interests nearly all of the time,” Mr. Adams said in an email. “But there are very few votes that come in that way, so it’s not a really big issue. CAP wants to make it easier for felons and criminals to vote but wants to make it harder for fighting men and women overseas.”
To read the entire article from the Washington Times, click here:
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