Menendez has voted. It may be his last vote for a while

Former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez returned his mail-in ballot on April 28, and unless President Donald Trump pardons him, this could be the last time he votes for the next decade as he prepares to begin his eleven-year prison sentence on June 17.

When Menendez cast his vote-by-mail ballot, he expected to report to a federal prison on June 6, four days before the June 10 Democratic primary.   Under state law, incarcerated individuals may not vote.   Since county election officials may separate VBM ballots as early as June 5, Menendez might have been able to vote from prison illegally.

Menendez sent his ballot back nine days before he asked U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein for permission to delay his reporting to a federal prison in Pennsylvania from June 6 to June 17 so that he could attend his step-daughter’s wedding out of state.  Stein granted him permission, saying that “no further adjournments will be granted.”

Unless his campaign to obtain a pardon from President Donald Trump works, Menendez will miss his first general election in November.  He turned 18 in January 1972 and has voted in each successive election.

Menendez was convicted last July on sixteen counts of bribery and corruption charges and was sentenced to eleven years in a federal prison.  He will serve his sentence at FCI Schuylkill,  a medium security federal prison with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in Minersville, Pennsylvania, about two-and-a-half hours from his home in Englewood Cliffs and about 50 miles west of Allentown.

The Republican-controlled New Jersey Legislature ratified the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 in May 1971.  The Senate had cleared the measure in March, 30-3, but the Assembly became a tougher sale.  Republican Gov. William Cahill pressured some Republicans; the lower house passed it, 47-9.

With off-year elections, New Jersey was one of the first states in the U.S. to allow 18-year-olds to vote.