LINK ? Originally Posted by i'va biggenCouldn't be more "traditional" than the dim-retards being against the concept of soldiers voting from the very beginning, Ekim the Inbred Chimp.
The only previous wartime election had been held in 1812, and prior to 1860, not a single state sported legislation that enfranchised soldiers or sailors away from their home districts.
In early 1864, the problem had still not been uniformly resolved: seventeen states had passed legislation permitting soldiers to vote from the field or by proxy while the issue was staunchly opposed in the remaining states by dim-retard governors and legislatures. The fight for soldier suffrage had been picked up by Republicans following sobering defeats in the election of 1862, in which twenty seats were lost in the House of Representatives to the dim-retards’ gain of 27, and was almost universally opposed by dim-retards who feared that soldiers would vote overwhelmingly for Lincoln.
The Election of 1862 convinced Republican leaders that change was necessary to combat the “race baiting” tactics of dim-retards and demonstrated the potential importance of a soldier vote.
As 1864 approached, dim-retards employed many of the same tactics that had been so successful during the midterms.
(p. 3, The Army for Lincoln in 1864: Electing the President, Ending the War, and Changing the Voting Process)
