Posted on 11/06/2006 8:18:00 PM PST by Spruce
Big discussion of this topic last night, good info too!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1732905/posts
I called his office and gave them a workout and they admitted that they can not quantify the "risk" to military voters if they use those options.
If Holt wins this year and runs again, I'm going to be his worst nightmare, the military father doging him at every campaign stop about disenfrancising our military voters in 2006.
A civil rights lawsuit?
ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION ALTERNATIVES FOR FLORIDA UNIFORMED SERVICE MEMBER (OR ELIGIBLE DEPENDENT)
Fax:
Send FPCA for ballot request*
Receive blank ballot*
Return voted ballot*
Email:
Receive blank ballot*
Telephone:
Request blank ballot**
*Overseas Uniformed Services voters only.
CIVILIAN OUTSIDE THE U.S. (OVERSEAS)
Fax:
Send FPCA for ballot request
Receive blank ballot
Return voted ballot
Email:
Receive blank ballot
Telephone:
Request blank ballot**
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
**If you are already registered to vote.
Use fax numbers or email address available at www.fvap.gov/services/faxing.html.
After faxing or emailing, send the FPCA and/or Ballot by mail.
Click here for the online version of the FPCA.
Use the Florida instructions available in both Adobe Acrobat (PDF) and HTML.
Return to Electronic Transmission Alternatives by State.
I posted this on a thread a while back, but I am reposting it for you to read as maybe you might find it interesting for the thread you started.
The thread was called"
"Oops! Absentee Ballots Went Out Too Late for Aug. 8 more..."
Posted by musicman to Grendel9; All
On News/Activism 08/08/2006 6:45:47 PM EDT · 31 of 40
That's not the only problem with the "military ballots".
A long true story that I posted back in 2000 here on FR concerning the "military ballots", I will shorten the version as best I can and still try to tell it.
In 2000, I operated a business in Florida two doors from small, but very busy US Post Office. One guy named Dave worked there, and was working there in 1993 when my business opened. Dave was also in the US Naval Reserve. We talked almost every day about almost everything EXCEPT politics, and he was always smiling and fun to talk to.
In September of 2000, I was out in back of the plaza walking the doggies, and Dave had just finished loading a USPS truck with the non-local mail to go to the Daytona Station, and then to Jacksonville and beyond. Dave saw me and walked over and started a conversation.....about politics.
He asked me who I thought was going to win the 2000 national election.
I replied George Bush.
Dave's face turned Al Gore - Howard Dean - Ted Kennedy raving rant red as he loudly replied:
"Well, I can tell ya this, I don't know of a SINGLE USPS UNION WORKER who is gonna vote for him!! He wants to PRIVATIZE the USPS !!! We all got that in our last union letter, and discussed it at our last union meeting !! I don't think he'll take Florida, or the national election !!"
I was totally shocked by the tone and his reply, but I replied to him as calmly as I could:
"Well, there are a lot of people who live up north, and that are in the military, that will be voting absentee, and a lot of those folks will probably vote for Bush."
Dave angrily replied: " Yeah?? Well you'd be surprized how many of THOSE absentee ballots can get "misplaced" !!
I have never forgotten that conversation. The USPS IS a VERY large NATIONAL union that, like most unions, seem to mostly lean Dem, and THEY get to sort and handle ALL the absentee ballots FIRST !! They can make them "disappear", or maybe arrive "just-a-little-too-late" to count.
IMHO,I truly believe the USPS workers could have and might have influenced more than ONE election, and could do it very easily "under the radar", with a majority of their co-workers working together to accomplish it......
Sorry for the rant...
Sadly from what I know and other stories over the years your story rings 100% true.
http://www.fvap.gov/pubs/vag/textvag/mn.html
E. Electronic Transmission of FPCAs and Ballots
Minnesota allows you to send the FPCA for absentee ballot request by fax. After faxing, submit the FPCA by mail
Minnesota does not allow you to receive the blank ballot by fax.
Minnesota does not allow you to return the voted ballot by fax.
Please refer to Appendix B for specific instructions when transmitting election materials electronically. Use the following numbers: DSN 223-5527, (703) 693-5527, 1-800-368-8683 (from U.S., Canada, Guam, Washington, Virgin Islands only). International toll-free fax numbers (See http://www.fvap.gov/services/tollfree.html ).
Thank you!!
Of course, they are not definably minorities. They are fair game.
Against each state in which individual troops are registered? That sounds awfully messy. Especially when you consider that the monkey-wrenched gears are likely to be a different part of the machinery in each state.
It would probably be more efficient to bypass the attorneys/courts, and implement policy across all branches of the service by which absentee ballots are expedited to the troops in plenty of time. If DoD can't get the job done, due to problems caused by the state governments or USPS, then perhaps Congress should get involved.
Whatever the case may be, something must be done. We have dead people, felons, and most likely a bunch of illegal immigrants voting multiple times stateside, but we can't get ballots to our troops? BS.
PING
We need to know precisely who the "they" are who screw things up for military voters. We need to fire them from any positions they hold. We need to hunt them down and...(you know).
As with so vary many fine folks in the military, she's a highly motivated voter. In fact, she is overniting her absent voter ballot to me to deliver to the polling station here in CA.
(I don't suspect any military voter suppression in this case.)
.
IIRC, the military postal system postmarks don't have a date stamp, that being the issue in the Florida vote in 2000.
They have one, it's just that they didn't always use them especially on ships where all the mail is placed in a bundle before being shipped to the USPS. Indeed, "MPS" mail franked with ZIP codes of now-defunct military bases are somewhat valuable to stamp collectors. I think they are now supposed to date stamp all election ballots.
Besides, for the date stamp to come into play, the ballot would have had to have been received after midnight of the 6th at the earliest for it to be rejected as arriving "too late." At the time of the initial posting, it was not yet midnight anywhere in the United States at any polling place, so how could it be "rejected as too late"?
So there you go. Some states, MN being one, do not allow the ballots to be sent by FAX nor returned by FAX, only the application for the ballot can be by FAX (and in some cases by email or direct application through a state website). However if they, the state, and actually the local, usually county, authorities don't send out the ballots in time for them to make the round trip, or if they get "delayed" in the mail on the outbound leg, the military member is SOL. The law, IIRC says they, the states, have to accept ballots postmarked by the election, but IIRC, the military system does not provide date stamps on their postmarks, or at least they didn't in 2000, because that was an issue in the Florida vote then.
Just looked at the requirement for my previous state, Nebraska. They don't allow the ballot to be faxed (or email to fax) and require the ballot to arrive by the close of the polls on election day. Nothing in their rules about the postmark being sufficient. So that's two states where one could receive the ballot, either by mail or fax, too late to get it back in time to be counted. I suspect there are more.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.