Madison referendum problems favor "Yes" supporters
Madison has a major problem with the ballots for Tuesday's referendum on whether the school district can permanently exceed spending caps. The ballots were printed incorrectly, and they are hustling to print correct ballots for the city voting locations. The problem is absentee ballots will be cast with the old, incorrect ballots. 2200 of them, in fact. Because of this, the "yes" supporters have every advantage to get their way.
If the vote ends up a 'Yes' by less than 2200 votes, the yes supporters are going to say the differences in the ballots are so small as to be insignificant. The vote will be thrown into the courts, and given that this is Dane county we're talking about, the yeses will probably have a sympathetic judge. If this ends up as a no by less than 2200 votes, this vote will be in the courts so fast it'll make your head spin. Given the funny timing of all this falling on weekend, which is a dead news period, I'd be surprised if the 'Yes' supporters don't already have lawyers working on it. Should they go to court on a No vote, they will claim that the absentee ballots caused this vote to flip to a no.
So, it seems to me that there is only one solution. Reschedule this election. This referendum cannot take place fairly, so the entire thing should be postponed. This would likely require a court order, and I'll be curious to see if anyone tries to contest this on Monday.
If bleeding hearts in Madison really care at all about preventing the disenfrachisement of the elderly and the poor, they will be the ones in front of the Court on Monday. If they go forward with this, they disenfranchise every single person holding an absentee ballot, regardless of the outcome.
(cross posted at Jiblog)
If the vote ends up a 'Yes' by less than 2200 votes, the yes supporters are going to say the differences in the ballots are so small as to be insignificant. The vote will be thrown into the courts, and given that this is Dane county we're talking about, the yeses will probably have a sympathetic judge. If this ends up as a no by less than 2200 votes, this vote will be in the courts so fast it'll make your head spin. Given the funny timing of all this falling on weekend, which is a dead news period, I'd be surprised if the 'Yes' supporters don't already have lawyers working on it. Should they go to court on a No vote, they will claim that the absentee ballots caused this vote to flip to a no.
So, it seems to me that there is only one solution. Reschedule this election. This referendum cannot take place fairly, so the entire thing should be postponed. This would likely require a court order, and I'll be curious to see if anyone tries to contest this on Monday.
If bleeding hearts in Madison really care at all about preventing the disenfrachisement of the elderly and the poor, they will be the ones in front of the Court on Monday. If they go forward with this, they disenfranchise every single person holding an absentee ballot, regardless of the outcome.
(cross posted at Jiblog)
posted by Jib @ 6:00 PM
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