A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

16 May 2017 — 0614 mdt

Mail ballot postmark law, angel of political death

Montana law should allow ballots postmarked on or before election day to be counted. Officially, election day is the last day voters can cast a ballot. But for Montanans who vote by mail, the de facto last day is actually the last day they can mail a ballot and have a reasonable assurance that it will be delivered to the elections office. That day may actually be a week to ten days before the election ends given the snail’s pace at which the U.S. Post Office moves mail.

An election day postmark law is not a new idea. California accepts ballots postmarked on election day:

Vote-by-mail ballots that are mailed must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by your county elections office no later than 3 days after Election Day.

Montana should do adopt a similar law, but accept ballots that arrive five days after the election closes.

Everything that Hillary Clinton touches turns to defeat. She’s baaaack, reports the Guardian, with a new group called Onward Together (her failed Presidential campaign’s slogan was Stronger Together).

Clinton said in the email that the organization is “dedicated to advancing the vision that earned nearly 66 million votes in the last election”. The figure is a reference to her popular vote victory over Trump, a fact that apparently continues to irritate the president.

On Twitter, Clinton said Onward Together would start by supporting a handful of liberal organizations, including the prominent Swing Left and Indivisible, which are Democratic groups focused on winning the House in the 2018 midterms. She also cited Color of Change, which is focused on criminal justice reform, Emerge America, which trains Democratic women to run for office, and Run for Something, which helps recruit and support millennials running in down-ballot races.

The vision her campaign advanced was Make Hillary Great by making her the first woman to be elected President. She botched the election, inflicting Donald Trump on the nation and placing 80 years of social and economic progress at terrible risk. No one should forgive her for that, or forget what she did. No Democrat who wants to win in 2018 should have anything to do with her. She’s an angel of political death.