'This Is the Latest in a Cascade of Ineptitude by the Department of Justice'

One of the rare occasions I agree with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg slammed the state's Board of Elections on Monday for failing to mail out absentee ballots to military and overseas voters from New York City and four additional counties.

"I don’t know whether or not the Board of Elections has failed to send out absentee ballots to the military or anybody else, but if they have failed it really is reprehensible," Bloomberg told Fox News. "We send our young men and women overseas to fight and to die for us and we don’t care enough to make sure they get the right to exercise their franchise? That’s what they’re over there fighting for as much as anything else."

FoxNews.com first reported Sunday that New York had not mailed out absentee ballots to all its 320,000 military servicemen and women and overseas voters, in clear violation of the MOVE Act.

As of Monday at noon, the ballots still had not been sent.

It likely won't make much difference in New York State's Senate and gubernatorial races, but could impact tight Congressional races where the GOP stands a chance at winning some seats. Which is probably why our military won't get a chance to vote.

Change!

Seems to me the Justice Department is looking to suppress the vote. Of course if this occurred during a Republican administration there'd be howls of protest.

“The sad fact is that New York City's failure will have its greatest impact on those military members serving on the front lines," Eversole said. "They do not have the luxury of receiving their ballots via e-mail and must rely on a notoriously slow postal service to receive their ballots. Without immediate action, there is no doubt that some of these troops will be disenfranchised by New York's failure. It is truly shameful."

Another former Justice Department attorney, J.Christian Adams, weighed in on Monday.

“This is the latest in a cascade of ineptitude by the Department of Justice. Military voters and their families should be enraged,” said Adams, who now is a conservative blogger.

“A credible enforcement operation would have detected problems on October 2. DOJ didn’t detect it, and almost two weeks later, the situation has become critical in New York and other states. The only place they have sued to enforce the law? Guam. ”

Senator John Cornyn weighs in:

"The fact that New York government officials failed to live up to the clear terms of the waiver is shocking, in light of how much our troops have sacrificed in the years since 9/11. This is a clear violation of federal voting rights law. If DOJ does not file a suit to right this wrong as soon as the courts open on Tuesday, then we will know once and for all that DOJ is not serious about safeguarding military voting rights."

New York apparently isn't the only state not in compliance.

You can bet the media that is ignoring this story (everyone but Fox, of course) will be all over stories of manufactured voter suppression stories on election day and what a threat to democracy it is. The so-called "Justice Department" will be all over those stories while they yawn over this outrage.