Pretty sure this sign helps explain why they do not want to count military ballots.
Posted on 10/24/2008 6:33:46 AM PDT by jessduntno
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 dependents to cast an absentee ballot when they haven’t received a [state] ballot before the election,” Herrity said. “For them it’s a safety net. It allows them to vote if the mail truck hasn’t reached his or her remote base in Iran or Afghanistan in time to cast a regular absentee ballot.”
When asked how many ballots had been rejected, Herrity responded, “Out of the 260 military federal write-in ballots received to date, only five included an address for the witness. The other 255 have been set aside for rejection.”
Block 7: Sign and date in the presence of one witness. The witness must sign and date the form.
Nothing about an address being required by the witness.
Instructions for VA military members in Section 7
Okay, the ballot as constructed does not require the address of the witness and provides no place for it. It does require the address of the notary if notarized, which would be written wherever the seal is applied. The commonly accepted practice for notaries.
The instructions for VA do not specify the need for address of the witness.
In Brevard County, FLA, the voting clerk there said they don’t even bother to open mail-in ballots as “they don’t change the outcome anyway.” That was a statement made in 2000.
Rokey Suleman should go back to Ohio and starting Young Democrat clubs. Let hi run for office there again, who cares ? Leave Fairfax County alone. He represents the worst of Chicago/Cincinnati/Cleveland type politics that we do not need here.
Freema and Corin ... for your VA ping lists, see NC’s post 17.
I have a call in to Suleman's office right now. The last I got from other sources but am working to confirm is that IF the soldier ALSO applied for a VA absentee ballot in ADDITION to submitting the federal write-in absentee ballot, then and only then will Suleman count that vote if the ballot does not contain the witness address, which is absurd. The federal write-in is a stop gap to insure that a service member does get their vote counted. Period.
Funny how the list of communists is growing. Remember Rokey Suleman.
Couldn’t resist this. One day these military men will come home. Maybe these communist should understand that an angered military person would be something to worry about. Couldn’t resist this and if Obama is elected and the RATS start tearing America apart, civil war!!!!!!! Guess what side the military will be on.
The link you provided (http://www.fvap.gov/.../va/index.html) recites:
Block 7: Sign and date in the presence of one witness. The witness must sign and date the form.
but the link at http://www.fvap.gov/resources/media/vagVA.pdf recites:
No notary or witness required except when a voter is unable to sign the application due to a physical disability or inability to read or write.
Our troops should get their absentee ballots set aside as PROVISIONAL votes, should be quickly notified to provide the missing info, and should have their votes counted if the info is provided.
It's like accidentally leaving your driver's license at home, and then getting stopped by a police officer for some traffic violation. If you can produce your license, the court drops that charge at least.
Of ALL citizens that should be ASSURED of having their votes counted, our troops should be NUMBER ONE.
Of course, we all know that the left-wing of the demonRAT party actually loathes our military, and it may be due to them supporting and voting for Republicans/Conservatives OVERWHELMINGLY.
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, 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 e-mails from TrueVote.US....”It just shut us down,” Suleman said.
Yeah, I’ll bet you and Kevin Zeese and Linda Schade from True Vote.US are all broken up about this.
Linda Schade is the founding Executive Director of Voters for Peace a member of the VotersForPeace board, and the Director of the VFP Peace, Climate and Security Initiative. She co-founded TrueVoteMD and VoteTrustUSA.
Kevin Zeese is the Executive Director and co-founder of Voters for Peace. Zeese also served as the Executive Director of Democracy Rising is an attorney, and a long term peace advocate
Yeah Rokey, lets just talk about “the pros and cons” of all this “after Election Day”.
F. Federal Write-In Absentee BallotAdditionally, for registered Virginia voters, the FWAB can serve simultaneously as an absentee ballot request and ballot for Federal offices as long as it is received 5 days before the election. The FWAB Declaration/Affirmation must contain the residence address where the voter is registered in Virginia, the voter's current military or overseas address, and the voter's and witness' signature and date. The witness must provide his or her printed name and address in Block 6.
II. Uniformed Services ...
C. Notary/Witness Requirements
FPCA: No notary or witness required except when a voter is unable to sign the application due to a physical disability or inability to read or write.Returning a Ballot: The oath on the envelope must be witnessed and the address of the witness included.
The problem is that the Fairfax County government had originally interpreted Virginia law to require all Federal Write-In Absentee ballots to have a witness' signature, printed name and address on the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot. However, the underlying Virginia law only requires this witness signature, printed name and address if they are taking advantage of the special Virginia provision that allows the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot to ALSO serve as the absentee ballot application. Because that's different from what the federal Voting Assistance Guide says, hundreds of Federal Write-In Absentee Ballots received to date were potentially going to be rejected. ...I've been in contact with the Fairfax County Registrar, Rokey Fulman, and he accepted my recommendation to contact the Virginia State Board of Elections to confirm this interpretation of the Virginia statute, as Sam's letter points out the Fairfax interpretation is likely incorrect. I'm happy to report that he has received guidance from the State Board of Elections that the witness name and signature requirement do indeed only apply if the FWAB is also being used simultaneously as an absentee ballot application. Therefore, so long as a Federal Post Card Application is received by election day, the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot will count, which is the normal process for military absentee ballots to be cast.
This is not over by a long shot, Cboldt.
ping
I’m usually out of town during the week. My wife told me today that Richmond City was excusing absences from school when Fauxbama was here, but did not excuse absences when Gov. Palin was at RIR.
I wasn’t able to find a news story to back that up (after a rather brief search). Can anyone confirm that story from this past week?
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