Less than half of military votes overseas counted

WASHINGTON — Overseas military voters had less than half of their votes counted in last year’s congressional elections, according to data released by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission on Monday.

“One thing is clear: At every level of government, we need to do a better job,” said Donetta Davidson, chair of the commission. “We must make sure all eligible voters are getting their opportunities.”

The figures, released at the commission’s annual conference on ways to improve and troubleshoot the absentee voting process, showed that only about 992,000 of the nearly 6 million eligible overseas citizens requested ballots for the 2006 general election.

That included about 119,000 military personnel stationed outside the United States. Of those, only about 57,000 — less than 48 percent — had their votes successfully cast or counted.

EAC officials said that’s roughly the same percentage that were counted for expatriates and domestic military filing absentee ballots. The major failures were on the ballot delivery side, with about 72 percent of those who failed to vote never receiving any of their requested election materials.

> just remember on CrossFire in 2000, Margaret Carlson
said people only join the military to avoid paying taxes................

Wish I had been on that panel - “You know, you’re right Margaret. There are people who would rather die than pay all the taxes you Democrats have concocted.”

Assuming the uncounted ballots break 3 to 1 Republican that is only a net change of less than 30,000 votes spread across 435 Congressional races and 30+ Senate races.

Your logic is impeccable. However, it is exactly the rationale with a bit of a left-spin, taken shameless advantage of by the Democrats, and enables the Stupid Party to ignore vote fraud "on practical grounds."

And BTW, it is exactly the RNC logic pushed by Rush Limbaugh in his "If the turnout is big enough, fraud won't matter" philosophy. It does.

Organized, systematic, scientific Fraud, led most notably by Ed Rendell, Donna Brazile, Dick Daley, and a horde of operatives, is a basic Democrat strategy on every election level from school board to President. State legislatures from Maine to California are controlled by Democrats who sit there through plain and fancy fraud.

It's this simple. When fraud is suppressed as it was in Missouri after Ashcroft was robbed, and in Maryland for Ehrlich's election, it turns out that the GOP is not quite as much the "minority" party the Democrat strategists would have you, and millions of other well meaning, rational people believe. It is also quite simply, a national disgrace.

In regard to the military vote: The Democrats have feared it since the Civil War, and in the states they control it has been suppressed since then, lately more successfully than ever. Look it up.

I don't doubt that systematic fraud is being used by the Democrats in many places. What I dispute is whether the uncounted military votes would have made any real difference in the elections in 2006. That is why I asked if the poster had a particular race in mind.

I think that all vote fraud should be vigorously investigated and prosecuted with substantial prison time and huge fines for those found guilty of major fraud. All votes should be counted even if the votes won't change the outcome of the election. In a democratic republic, every person who takes the time to exercise their civil right to vote should have their voice heard and that is why the vote must be counted.

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