The motive behind SB 155 concerning deceased voters is not a bad one, but with a subject like “deceased voters,” you’re going to invite people to make fun of it. I clearly couldn’t resist. Sen. Walker’s bill provides that, if a person casts an absentee ballot and then subsequently dies (making the vote very absentee), the person’s votes are valid and should be counted, notwithstanding the death.
Wanting to honor the wishes of the dead is laudable but, in my mind, I guess the point of an election is to determine the will of the governed. When someone has passed away, they are beyond the laws of man. And, so, to me, it seems reasonable to count the votes of only the living who will be subjected to the laws and governance of the person put in office. That said, I can’t imagine that this amounts to very many votes. And, death is the ultimate non-partisan issue. So, even though I lean against the legislation, I’m not going to get any heartburn if it passes.
The bill passed out of the Senate Elections Committee and will head to the floor of the Senate.
Early voting votes would still count, right? How would you know how someone voted.
That’s exactly the goal. Person votes on the 1st, dies on the 2nd, and their vote is still counted on the 5th.
I agree with Doug that the will of the dead should not be considered for the living, however, I read elsewhere that the goal is to reduce the load on local election officials who need to validate that every absentee vote cast was done by someone who was alive on election day. It is a bit of a pain, for sure, with a very small gain.
That said, if we were really concerned with the effort put forth in validating votes, we could stop the focus on voter ID laws.
But considering that there is generally a several-month delay between the casting of ballots and swearing in the elected, should we also erase the votes of those who died between Election Day and Inauguration Day? I’m sympathetic to your reasoning, but the real-world implementation really doesn’t leave any option except “was the person who cast the ballot eligible to cast the ballot at the time the ballot was cast?”