This morning's "Fox & Friends" repeated some misreporting on a dozen nuns who were supposedly "barred" from voting yesterday at their South Bend, Indiana, polling station due to lack of proper ID. As I noted in my May 6 blog entry, the sisters were not refused the vote, they chose not to vote using the provisional balloting option. [audio available here]
As the AP's Deborah Hastings reported in an early draft that was later excised from her story:
They weren't given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law, Sister McGuire said. "You have to remember that some of these ladies don't walk well. They're in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts."
Of course last night's race between Clinton and Obama was close, but not by a margin of 12 votes. Simply put, these sisters could have voted and opted to not follow up with the validation process should none of the races they voted in remain undecided within the 10-day window. In other words, no one barred these sisters from voting but the sisters themselves.
Unfortunately the "Fox & Friends" crew sloppily picked up on the MSM meme without noting the provisional ballot safeguard within the law and clearly spelled out on the Indiana Secretary of State's official Web site.
Here's the transcript:
GRETCHEN CARLSON, co-host: We want to tell you about some 80- and 90-year-old nuns in Indiana.
BRIAN KILMEADE, co-host: Why would you just want to tell us about 80- and 90-year-old nuns in Indiana?
CARLSON: Because they tried to vote yesterday in Indiana. And apparently they had heard the new rules, that you have to come with ID, but they showed up with outdated passports and such. And they thought that they could still vote and you know what, they were turned away. They were barred from voting.
KILMEADE: One was 98-years-old. They could not vote because she did not have proper picture ID.
STEVE DOOCY, co-host: These particular nuns were from St. Mary's College [sic] which is just across the street from Notre Dame in South Bend, and, look, the precinct worker said, 'We're sorry but the rules are the rules and we can't let you do it in light of the Supreme Court ruling just a couple [sic*] of weeks ago.' So anyway, they did say that by the general election they would probably would have identification.
*The ruling came down nine days ago, on April 28.
