Wow! Turner campaign sent 5,000 letters to voters in Israel
It would not be surprising if NY-9 - the district that had a special election on September 13 in which Republican Bob Turner defeated Democrat David Weprin - has the highest number of olim among its voters of any US Congressional district. Still, this is stunning: Turner’s campaign, which was staffed and assisted by many Orthodox Jews, also sent 5,000 pieces of direct mail to American citizens living in Israel who are registered to vote in the 9th CD, sources said. (That’s more than Turner’s margin of victory of 4,128 votes in his 33,816-win upset over Democrat David Weprin.)Wow.
One such letter reached Lieberman’s husband, Menachem, a native of Kew Gardens in Queens, who was among a half-dozen members of his family to vote in last week’s race.
“That was the first indication I had that this was a serious race,” said Ruth Lieberman.
While election laws vary by state, New York allows U.S. citizens whose last address here is within the state to submit absentee ballots, according to John Conklin, a spokesman for the state Board of Elections. Voters who miss two subsequent elections are listed as inactive but can still vote in the next election if their identity is verified.
The New York City Board of Elections, which tallied the ballots in last week’s 9th CD race, did not respond to The Jewish Week’s request for data on how many votes were submitted from Israel and how many were won by each candidate.
Larry Sabato, chair of the political science department of the University of Virginia, said he had heard of voters abroad being targeted in presidential campaigns — military absentee ballots were a major sticking point in the 2000 Bush-Gore recount controversy — but this was the first he had heard of a local campaign reaching across the ocean.
“You go where the ducks are,” said Sabato. “If you have these voters registered in your district, you go after them. Whether this has been done before, I don’t know.”
“It’s perfectly legal,” he added. “There many expatriates who are still loyal citizens, who for business or personal reasons live abroad.”
Murray, Turner’s campaign manager, said it was standard procedure for a campaign to obtain lists from the local Board of Elections of people who have filed for absentee ballots, which would include military personnel as well as those living permanently abroad. “Someone who asks for a ballot is definitely going to vote,” he said.
Labels: Bob Turner, Israelis voting in US elections, NY-9
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:31 PM
1 Comments:
The only trouble with American NY voters living in Israel being stuck with absentee voting is that the ballots will get lumped in with the military ballots. The Dems have an extensive track record of mis-printing them, shipping them late and to typo-embedded addresses so they get there late or not at all, mislaying them so that they get onto the counting stream too late... anything to disenfranchise them. You in Israel probably had a good chance to get them counted this time, but now that you've gone off the reservation voting in a REPUBLICAN (!!), you will have military level chances of getting your votes included in the tally in 2012 (as close to 0% as the Dems can manage). It is great to see Turner's campaign paying attention to absentee voters... maybe he can make allowing the military to vote, as required by law, a project, too.
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