SamPratt.com

Though the latest never-ending fracas over absentee ballots here in Columbia County can seem complicated, one fact is easily stated, grasped, and beyond dispute. Namely, the fact that:

Not a single person has been accused of voting twice in the disputed 2009 election.

Not one.

Yet this simple fact has not stopped the Republicans whispering/smear campaign that weekenders are voting twice. And it has not stopped a local paper, The Register-Star, from repeatedly publishing letters based on that imaginary accusation.

In the past two days alone, there have been letters from Richard Sardo of Ghent and Hugh Baillargeon of Claverack (who also touted the idea of building a 400-foot-tall coal-burning cement plant practically on top of Hudson), both premising their rambling arguments on the imaginary idea that people are voting twice here.

GOP lawyers have not presented evidence (nor even tried to allege) that anyone in Taghkanic has voted twice. Rather, the issue at hand is whether people with more than one residence can choose which one residence they consider their "home" for voting purposes. Republicans seem to think that the courts know better than individuals where their home is—even though these same Republicans don't seem to respect the many years of court precedent reaffirming that right.

Those precedents were upheld yet again in November 2008 in the so-called Willkie case in Bovina, New York. The Appellate Division (3rd Department) just upheld Willkie yet again when Greg Fingar and the Columbia County Republicans irresponsibly and hypocritically went shopping for an activist judge to make new law through the courts.

The GOP's lack of a case aside, our local press at least ought to at least be concerned that many of its readers seem to have developed a complete misunderstanding of the issue—and wonder what in its reporting led to that lack of comprehension. A responsible local paper seeks to clarify issues, and certainly should try to print a balanced mix of reasonably credible letters. But a responsible local paper does not blithely print every imaginary and divisive accusation it receives in the mail, at least not without making an effort to be sure the facts get reported.