Sen. Coleman’s lawyers are pushing to include an absentee ballot from a man who voted in Pine County even though he was a resident of another county. Now they’re arguing that the ballot should be included because even though the voter lived in a different county, at the time of the election, he was in the Pine County jail.
Late Update: This commenter may see Coleman’s angle here: “Maybe he’s trying to preserve his franchise once he ends up behind bars.”
Later Policy Update: Let me clarify one broader policy point. Many states around the country have laws which take away voting rights from felons even after they’ve served their time. I’m basically against all those laws. It’s actually a big problem because it leaves big swaths of the population permanently disenfranchised. This of course seems to be the more prosaic issue of voting in a county where you don’t live, rather than civic disabilities of prisoners, though I admire the guy’s diligence in pursuing his civic rights even while he had a lot of other stuff to worry about.
