Kevin Woster reports that the ballot of Florence Steen, the 88-year-old woman who cast a deathbed vote for Hillary Clinton, is being thrown out. Mrs. Steen got to fulfill a dream and mark her absentee ballot for a female presidential candidate on April 29. She succumbed to congestive heart failure on Mother's Day, and was laid to rest yesterday. Given this due proof of the absentee voter's death prior to the opening of the polls on June 3, Pennington County Auditor Julie Pearson is required by South Dakota law (SDCL 12-19-9.2, 12-19-49) to pull the ballot and return it to sender unopened.
One of my readers had asked if that ballot would count. As we thought about it, we figured similar absentee ballots that outlived those who cast them must have slipped through the system before. And there's no fraud here, just an honest woman who cast an honest vote. I agree with Senator Clinton on this one: such a vote ought to count.
I wonder: would counting such absentee ballots create any problems? Unless someone can show some potential for chicanery, it seems changing the law to honor "dying wish" votes would be a perfectly decent thing to do. We can't change the law for this year's primary or the general election, but maybe our legislators can put a sticky note in their planners for the 2009 session: change the death rules on absentee ballots.
What? Are you from Chicago or something?
ReplyDeleteChanging voting laws to honor dying wishes?
Seriously. that's insane.
She cast her ballot. Then she died. It is sad that she died. But the dead can't vote. Nor do their wishes have any bearing whatsoever on the lay of the land, no matter that their bones are now in't. Voting is for the living.
I am a staunch Obama supporter and I am strongly moved by the story of Florence Steen. Sometimes we are blessed by The Creator to live in a day and time when the prayers, wishes, and desires of previous generations are bare fruit. The manifestation of these prayers, wishes, and desires is seen in the shattering of the political glass ceilings by Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama. As I said I am a staunch supporter od Senator Obama, nevertheless I have never seen such a tenacious warrior as Mrs. Clinton. In no small part the democratic party is blessed by the fulfillment of the American dreams of Florence Steen and those like her.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree that Florence's vote should probably not be counted. No doubt many of these sorts of ballots do slip through and get counted anyway, but I think the official policy should be the dead do not vote. The decisions made at the ballot box affect the living, and should be made by the living, even though Florence's story is a tearjerker.
ReplyDeleteB