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Despite court prodding and changes in state election laws, 16 Virginia localities have failed to meet a deadline to allow absentee ballots of military personnel serving overseas to be counted on time. Nancy Rodriques, secretary of the State Board of Elections, said she did not know how many ballots will not be counted. The local election districts include the cities of Richmond, Colonial Heights and Williamsburg as well as Caroline County. "Words cannot express my disappointment in our commonwealth," said Rusty McGuire of Hanover County, chairman of the Iraqi Freedom Veterans Plate Project and deputy commonwealth's attorney in Louisa County....

RICHMOND, Va. – A federal judge has ruled that Virginia violated the voting rights of military service members and other Americans overseas when officials failed to mail more than 2,100 absentee ballots in time for last year's presidential election. U.S. District Judge Richard Williams also ordered Friday that the Virginia Board of Elections count and certify the absentee ballots. The ballots from military service members and others living outside the state were the focus of a lawsuit filed by Republican candidate John McCain's campaign, which alleged that they weren't mailed in time for overseas voters to return them before the...

Is Virginia denying military voters the chance to vote in its state election this November? That’s what I gather from this post from the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder and this post from Republican blogger Soren Dayton. There’s some shabby history here. In 1944 Republicans and Southern Democrats in Congress ganged up to make it difficult for military personnel—about 12 million men at the time—to vote; Republicans believed that most G.I.s would vote for Franklin Roosevelt, and Southern Democrats feared that black G.I.s would vote and get into the habit of voting. In 2000 some Democrats in Florida tried to prevent military...

Last year, we covered some of the problems in the counting of military absentee ballots in Virginia, as did others. This problem has not gone away. It has just moved. The day before election day 2008, the McCain campaign filed a complaint in the Eastern District of Virginia to force Virginia to count military absentee ballots that came in after election day. McCain lost Virginia by more than enough votes, but the case went on with the Department of Justice replacing the McCain campaign.There were filings last month and will likely be a hearing this month. So what? The Virginia...

The State of Virginia has argued in a federal court filing that they can legally send out absentee ballots to active duty soldiers the day before an election. Restated again, the Democratic Chairwoman of the Virginia State Board of Election (appointed by the Democratic National Committee Chair Tim Kaine, in his capacity as Virginia Governor) Jean Cunningham just claimed a legal basis for massively raising the barrier to voting for soldiers at war.

Will soldiers have enough time to vote?Published: Saturday, October 3, 2009 FORT DRUM (AP) — Military and election officials insist that hundreds of deployed Fort Drum soldiers will have enough time to return their absentee ballots in next month’s special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional District, even though they won’t be mailed out for another two weeks. Friday was the regular deadline for counties to mail out absentee ballots to military personnel for the Nov. 3 general election. But those ballots don’t have the names of the three candidates in the 23rd District because the special election wasn’t set...

For many Americans, the 2008 presidential election was historic, both in its outcome and the number of citizens who voted, many for the first time. The overall turnout of the votingeligible population was 61.7 percent, the highest turnout since the 1964 presidential election.[1] Local election officials in many states reported high levels of voting by many individuals who have not traditionally participated in the election process. The same, however, cannot be said for America's military members and their votingage dependents ("military voters"). For these voters, especially those serving in dangerous combat zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, the 2008 presidential...

Remember the last election and all the rhetoric from the Democrats about making sure every vote counted, and reaching out to "traditionally" disenfranchised voters and communities? Remember how they were constantly accusing Republicans of deliberately and maliciously alienating and suppressing minority voters? Remember all that? In fact, claims of specific instances of disenfranchised voters were alleged long before the One ran for office. It turns out that the brave men and women of our military are the most disenfranchised group of voters today. Literally. The Heritage Foundation has published the results and analysis of research performed by Hans A. von Spakovsky,...

WASHINGTON - One out of every four ballots requested by military personnel and other Americans living overseas for the 2008 election may have gone uncounted, according to findings released at a Senate hearing. Sen. Charles Schumer, chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, said the study released Wednesday, while providing only a snapshot of voting patterns, "is enough to show that the balloting process for service members is clearly in need of an overhaul." The committee, working with the Congressional Research Service, surveyed election offices in seven states with high numbers of military personnel: California, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania,...

“Cheered wildly by U.S. troops,” begins Jennifer Democratic Operative Loven’s AP report on Obama’s surprise visit to Iraq on Tuesday. Quite a contrast to the silent treatment Marines gave Obama at his Camp LeJeune speech in late February. Just how did Obama manage to fix that little problem? According to a sergeant in Iraq : *****We were pre-screened, asked by officials “Who voted for Obama?”, and then those who raised their hands were shuffled to the front of the receiving line. They even handed out digital cameras and asked them to hold them up. [Via Macsmind.]**** As supporting evidence for...

In its recent order, the three-judge election contest court in Minnesota reiterated a common theme during the Coleman versus Franken Senate recount--notwithstanding the numerous questions raised regarding the fairness of the election, "Citizens of Minnesota should be proud of their electoral system, a system which has one of the highest voter-participation rates in the country." The court emphasized: "the facts presented thus far do not show a wholesale disenfranchisement of absentee voters in the 2008 general election." Accordingly, without any discussion of those facts, the court refused to review several groups of absentee ballots including many rejected ballots from military...

Only 25 votes separate Republican Tim Tedisco and Democrat Scott Murphy in the special election for New York’s 20th district. That means the winner will be determined by 6,000 outstanding absentee ballots. According to the Department of Justice, 1,300 overseas voters requested absentee ballots, 471 of whom are military voters. Unfortunately, it is the military voters who will probably end up being disenfranchised and having their votes discounted, thanks to the irresponsible New York Board of Elections and the half-hearted actions of the Department of Justice. The problem for military voters in places like Iraq and Afghanistan is that it...

The outcome of a special Congressional election in New York’s 20th Congressional District will likely turn on the illegal exclusion of up to 1,000 overseas military ballots, which otherwise would have tipped the race in favor of James Tedisco (R). Tedisco and Scott Murphy (D) are in a dead heat, with 77,225 votes each. Democrats on the state elections board blocked GOP attempts to allow overseas military voting in the special election. Overseas ballots take weeks to reach voters and be returned unless special measures are taken to speed things up. But the elections officials refused to do anything to...

A recent Military Times survey of active-duty service members found 6 of 10 U.S. soldiers polled said they were "pessimistic" or "uncertain" about Barack Obama serving as commander in chief of America's armed forces. In follow-up interviews reported by the Army Times newspaper, respondents cited Obama's inexperience in leading soldiers, his plans for accelerated removal of troops from Iraq and his pledge to overturn the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding homosexual service members as reasons for their cautious outlook. "Being that the Marine Corps can be sent anywhere in the world with the snap of his fingers," said...

Monday, December 29, 2008 Posted By:Catherine MoyPermalinkChange is Coming for U.S. Troops The election of Barack Obama as America’s next president has many of our troops confounded. Six out of 10 active service members are worried about Obama as commander in chief, according to a Military Times poll. “Being that the Marine Corps can be sent anywhere in the world with the snap of his fingers, nobody has confidence in this guy as commander in chief,” said one lance corporal who asked not to be identified. For eight years, members of the U.S. military have served under a Republican commander...

When asked how they feel about President-elect Barack Obama as commander in chief, six out of 10 active-duty service members say they are uncertain or pessimistic, according to a Military Times survey. In follow-up interviews, respondents expressed concerns about Obama's lack of military service and experience leading men and women in uniform. ''Being that the Marine Corps can be sent anywhere in the world with the snap of his fingers, nobody has confidence in this guy as commander in chief," said one lance corporal who asked not to be identified. Underlying much of the uncertainty is Obama's stated 16-month timetable...

President-elect Obama stopped by the Marine Corps base in Hawaii Kaneche Bay where servicemen and -women were eating Christmas dinner in Kailua Thursday evening. As Obama entered the room, it was absent of the regular fanfare of cheering and clapping. The diners were polite, staying seated at their respective tables and waited for the president-elect to come to them to stand up.

The last time the United States elected a Democrat as its president to govern with a majority-Democratic Congress, an immediate fracas arose over gays in the military, reinforcing a partisan story line that Democrats can't be trusted with the nation's security. Sixteen years later, some will certainly be watching how deftly President-elect Barack Obama salutes, or how House Speaker Nancy_Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid say the Pledge of Allegiance. These are symbols, of course, but the national security challenges the nation faces now are anything but symbolic: two wars, an ongoing terrorist menace, a growing list of unmet...

Facing the loss of his seat, U.S. Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr. said Thursday that all late-arriving absentee ballots cast by U.S. troops overseas should be counted as part of next week’s recount in his 5th District race. A federal judge in Richmond ruled Tuesday that Virginia’s State Board of Elections violated the law by mailing out absentee ballots to military voters too late for them to send back their ballot by Election Day. However, the judge added that the 4,750 such ballots across the state need not be counted, as they would not change the outcome of any race...

Voting experts are expecting a huge wave of military absentee ballots this year. The 184,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have a lot at stake in the vote to choose their next commander-in-chief. The mechanics of military voting are better than they used to be. But "better" doesn't always cut it for troops in war zones. Teresa Purcell got a call from her husband nine days before Election Day. "You're not going to believe this," he said, "we're not going to be allowed to vote for president of the United States because we're not getting the ballots." Robert Purcell was...

Saw video on the tube this morning of troops "watching the results" on the tv in a cafeteria. they didn't look happy at all that hussein was their next "commander in chief". i feel bad for them---a guy who once said their lives were being "wasted" in Iraq is now going to be in charge of their work.

Our military troops have to jump over great obstables to vote. And then the ballots may not be counted. Take for example the status of North Carolina with 99% in. The popular vote if 50% - 50% spilt. It is only a few thousand separating McCain winning a mistake. If all the military vote was counted and it was heavily McCain, it might chain the status of this state being for McCain and not for Obama. So maybe one thing to change after this elecion is make sure the miliatry is able to vote in a quick and easy way....

"Because many counties in Virginia failed to mail absentee ballots in time to our men and women in uniform stationed overseas, service members are being disenfranchised because they are unable to return their ballots before the November 4 deadline," campaign spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said in a written statement about the suit, which is scheduled to be heard in Williams' courtroom at 1:30 p.m. today. Chesapeake, Suffolk and Virginia Beach are among the localities cited in the lawsuit as those that mailed absentee ballots overseas in late September. The suit argues that service members didn't have enough time to cast their...

RICHMOND, Va.: Republican John McCain's presidential campaign sued the Virginia election board Monday, claiming absentee ballots weren't mailed on time to military members serving overseas. The complaint asks the U.S. District Court in Richmond to order the state to count absentee ballots postmarked by Tuesday and received by Nov. 14. It contends that thousands of troops' ballots, many of which would go to McCain, will not be counted. The deadline for ballots to be received is 7 p.m. Election Day, which is Tuesday. The lawsuit is the second in a week to challenge preparations for the presidential election in Virginia,...

Dear America, As you well know, our military folks are loosing their right to vote in droves this election. http://www.foxnews.com/video-search/m/21310185/ballot_battle.htm?pageid=27100 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2122304/posts They're ballots are being thrown in the garbage and turned away. These men and women are putting their lives on the line to preserve our right to live in security and not in fear. Please, consider this: If standing in a three or four hour long line seems too difficult, too uncomfortable for them, imagine standing in 120' heat in full "battle rattle" with a 40 pound rucksack for hours on end. Driving to the voting booth is tricky...

For U.S. troops serving overseas, nothing comes easy. Not even voting. Military members may not have enough time to complete and mail in their absentee ballots for Tuesday's election, thanks to slow mail delivery, lack of information sharing among election officials, and procedural errors. In the 2006 elections, about a third of the close to 1 million absentee ballots requested by uniformed overseas voters were returned and tallied, essentially disenfranchising the remaining 600,000-plus service members, according to the federal Election Assistance Commission. Barack Obama and John McCain have called on state election officials to reduce the voting obstacles for preventing...

Low Return On Absentee Ballots Expected; Some Officers Refuse To Vote To Underscore Political Neutrality. Soldiers must request by mail an absentee ballot from the local election district where they last lived. Then they are sent a paper ballot to fill out and mail back. Some soldiers said they never got ballots. The number of absentee military ballots applied for that ultimately get counted is consistently low. In the last federal election, only about 30 percent of overseas military ballots were tallied...

Rokey Suleman Fairfax County General Registrar 703-222-0776 Rokey.Suleman@fairfaxcounty.gov

Virginia Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell on Monday said federal absentee ballots from military voters overseas must be counted, following a local registrar's decision to set some ballots aside in an attempt to follow state law. In a seven-page advisory opinion delivered to the state Board of Elections, Mr. McDonnell said Virginia law requires overseas military voters submitting a Federal Post Card Application and Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB) to include the name and address of a witness on the application envelope. But he said federal law pre-empts the state provision requiring that certain absentee ballots include the witness's printed...

Military absentee votes will be counted in Fairfax County, Virginia thanks to an opinion just issued by Virginia's Attorney General Bob McDonnell. The just-issued opinion smacks down the partisan effort by Fairfax registrar Rokey Suleman who -- contrary to federal law -- was requiring military absentee ballots to show the address of the witness countersigning the ballot. O'Donnell's opinion finds that federal law preempts the Virginia law which requires the ballots to show witnesses' addresses. The press release from O'Donnell's office says: McDonnell Opinion: Count all Absentee Military Ballots Opinion Finds Federal Law Preempts State Law; Federal Ballots without Witness...

Surprise — at least one poll shows a huge McCain lead: “[Senator John] McCain, R-Ariz., handily defeated Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., 68 percent to 23 percent in a voluntary survey of 4,293 active-duty, National Guard, and reserve subscribers and former subscribers to Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, and Air Force Times.” Or perhaps not so surprising: there’s a history involved here. In 1864 the nation was nearing the end of the Civil War — but some wanted it ended sooner than others. Democrats offered a platform declaring that it was “the sense of the American people, that after...

As a major component of his presidential bid, Democratic nominee Barack Obama has deployed his wife on a mission to win over military families, many of them traditional Republicans. She has targeted the group with whom she hopes to forge an alliance -- wives of servicemen. In a series of round-table discussions and rallies in North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and New Mexico -- all battleground states -- Michelle Obama has discussed how she, like military spouses, juggles work and family. On the campaign trail she describes herself in simple terms -- a mother, a lawyer and a wife who grew...

Surprise — at least one poll shows a huge McCain lead: “[Senator John] McCain, R-Ariz., handily defeated Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., 68 percent to 23 percent in a voluntary survey of 4,293 active-duty, National Guard, and reserve subscribers and former subscribers to Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corps Times, and Air Force Times.” Or perhaps not so surprising: there’s a history involved here. In 1864 the nation was nearing the end of the Civil War — but some wanted it ended sooner than others. Democrats offered a platform declaring that it was “the sense of the American people, that after...

Organizations dedicated to helping overseas voters cast their ballot this year are reporting unprecedented rates of participation over the past few months as Election Day and absentee ballot deadlines near. The Defense Department’s Federal Voting Assistance Program, which assists all U.S. voters overseas, reported about 10.5 million visits to www.fvap.gov this year as of Oct. 19, up from 7.3 million visits for all of 2004. The site provides absentee voter information by state, and about 15,000 user accounts have been set up in which voters can fill out and generate state-specific absentee ballot request forms, according to Army Lt. Col....

A Republican Fairfax County supervisor is warning that more than 200 absentee ballots from members of the military could go uncounted because of a technicality. County Registrar Rokey Suleman II has set aside 255 federal write-in absentee ballots because they were submitted without a witness address, supervisor Patrick Herrity said Thursday at a press conference. A witness address is not required on a normal absentee ballot. But it is required on the federal write-in absentee ballots typically used by military members, Suleman said. "We're following the letter of Virginia law," Suleman said. Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., in a statement circulated...

Military Ballots Being Rejected in Virginia by Connie Hair Fairfax County Registrar Rokey Suleman is disqualifying an overwhelming majority of the military federal write-in absentee ballots received in his county on the basis that no address had been given for those witnessing the voter signatures on the ballots. According to Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity and four former members of the military who held a press conference on Thursday, over 98 percent of these military absentee ballots in Fairfax County are being rejected. “The federal write-in absentee ballot is a federally mandated ballot that allows military service members and their...

I was troubled today by yet another story demonstrating the alarming lack of regard for the fact that our military men and women are being disenfranchised from our democratic voting process. In Fairfax County, VA, it has been reported that military ballots are being literally thrown in the garbage because of a “technicality” in the absentee ballot form. Furthermore, the Justice Department has now filed a lawsuit against the State of Vermont and Vermont Secretary of State Deborah L. Markowitz, for failure to comply with the Uniformed Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), legislation intended to ensure that uniformed military...

From the Washington Post: RICHMOND, Oct. 21 -- Efforts by elections officials in Fairfax County and several Virginia jurisdictions to distribute absentee ballots to military members and others living overseas ground to a halt Tuesday after a group concerned about the state's voting system crashed e-mail servers with a massive letter-writing campaign.....With the deadline to apply for absentee ballots in Virginia on Tuesday, Rokey Suleman said he and other registrars were unable to mail out or receive applications electronically. About midmorning, the Fairfax elections office had to shut down its e-mail servers after they took in more than 700 form...

The military voting project at the National Defense Committee responds to reports out of Fairfax, Virginia, and after polite telephone conversations and an exchange of letters, the problem looks like it will be solved and votes will be counted.

The Young Democrats Meet the Third Thursday of the month: Next Meeting Thursday, August 21, 2008 6:00 PM Democratic Headquarters 164 High St. NE Warren, Ohio 44481 Rokey Suleman, Past President and Founding Member Fairfax County Registrar Rokey Suleman is disqualifying an overwhelming majority of the military federal write-in absentee ballots received in his county on the basis that no address had been given for those witnessing the voter signatures on the ballots. This is the same guy: Yes. The same guy. Should someone start writing to all of the outlets that might put this into the hands of media...

A tussle over military votes in Virginia reveals a scrap for every single vote. Virginia campaign officials for GOP presidential candidate John McCain are saying that some Fairfax County absentee ballots — and possibly some in Hampton Roads — from overseas service members are getting rejected due to a technicality. But the Fairfax registrar said that he is following state law in rejecting a small number of absentee ballots that come in at the same time as the voter's application. McCain's Virginia campaign officials called a press conference Thursday afternoon in Fairfax to say that a specific type of absentee...

The patchwork problem of federal and state election regulations strikes again. Military ballots are being tossed in Fairfax Co, VA because of a “technicality.” Not a lot of them compared to the size of the electorate, but more than a few. The registrar of voters in a Democrat. He thinks it “stinks,” but the law is the law. Fairfax general registrar Rokey Suleman said Thursday that he has had to reject some of the ballots because of a Virginia law passed in 2002. That law -- then called Senate Bill 113, sponsored by then state Sen. Bill Bolling – requires...

HARRISBURG, Pa.,, Oct 22, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Even though Election Day is less than two weeks away, Pennsylvania residents living overseas or serving in the military have been voting for several weeks as 11,071 absentee ballots have already been returned. In 2004's General Election, 30,042 Pennsylvania residents voted via military or overseas absentee ballot, but Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro A. Cortes said he hopes to exceed that number this year as a result of new initiatives that have expanded access and increased options for these voters. To date, counties have received more than 36,000 absentee ballot applications...

I almost drove off the road this morning when I heard this. Massachusetts Attorney General Bill Galvin, a surly hack who makes Joe Biden look like a wise statesman, has been slapped by a federal court for trying to disenfranchise members of the military. Seems Galvin has willfully disobeyed a federal courts' instruction to count the number of military absentee ballots returned to Massachusetts from overseas, especially US sailors and Marines. According to WRKO, Galvin has not met this requirement since he's been in office and a court finally slapped him hard. In response, Galvin claims that he doesn't have...

Missing Miltary Absentee BallotsPosted By: Mike Igoe 10 hrs ago Election Day is just a few weeks away now. And people who can't make it to the polls, such as those serving in the military, have the option of using an absentee ballot. Darelene Hedges of Depew called 2 On Your Side on behalf of her son who discovered there was a problem with his. Her son Joshua is serving with the National Guard in Afghanistan. He was told the absentee ballots for his overseas base had been lost. Darlene tells us her son, and the people serving with him,...

A poll by the Military Times newspaper group suggests that there is overwhelming support for John McCain among U.S. troops in every branch of the armed forces by a nearly 3-1 margin. According to the poll, 68 percent of active-duty and retired servicemen and women support McCain, while 23 percent support Barack Obama. The numbers are nearly identical among officers and enlisted troops.

Every American claims to “support the troops,” even those who have actively worked around the clock for years to “undermine the troops.” Over the weekend, the man who recently traveled to the United Nations to lay out a very convincing case against the Hussein regime in Iraq put his race and his personal legacy ahead of his country and our troops by endorsing another Hussein for President of the United States. Colin Powell has never been an honest Republican. He has only been an honest opportunist. Once Obama offered him a high level position in his administration, Powell was quick...

Army Times Poll on Presidential Race Source: http://www.militarytimes.com/static/projects/pages/081003_ep_2pp.pdfHat tip to Mike Thayer Interesting Poll from our guys and gals serving… I'm glad to know our men and women in uniform know what's right. In case you missed this week's issue of the Army Times here are the results of the Army Times' poll of Military personnel re: the election (in percent): McCain Obama Overall 68 23 Army 68 23 Navy 69 24 Air Force 67 24 Marines 75 18 Retirees 72 20 White Non-Hispanic 76 17 Hispanic 63 27 Black/African-American 12 79 Enlisted 67 24 Officers 70 22 Somehow I...

For decades, the nation's military officer corps has identified steadfastly with the priorities and values of the Republican Party. So the brass should be reveling in the presidential campaign of John McCain. Yet, in a culture that typically prefers one of its own, many are wary of the Vietnam War hero. McCain, a former Navy officer and prisoner of war, would arrive in the White House with more military experience than any president since Dwight D. Eisenhower. But he also would bring a long congressional career as an outspoken critic of the Pentagon -- prone to harsh assessments of its...