values voters

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Sep 05, 2008

I happened to be looking over an application form for an absentee ballot this morning. Question 3 asks the applicant to "check the appropriate category by which you are requesting an absentee ballot." Most of the options were predictable: "I am a student attending college out of the county." "I am observing a religious holiday." "I am serving as a juror," etc. It was the last option that caught my eye:

• I cannot legally enter my polling place because it is in a school.

Puzzling for a minute, then light broke. Of course -- the molester vote! It's frequently a condition of the release of child abusers that they stay 1000 feet (or whatever) away from school grounds. And just because a James Porter or a Paul Shanley can't be trusted near a playground is no reason why he can't be trusted with a ballot -- or so thinks the political organization in control of the county in question.