Posted on 11/11/2008 1:15:58 AM PST by LeoWindhorse
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 calling from Afghanistan, where he's serving with the New York National Guard.
He told his wife his troops got ballots, but that they were the wrong ones.
"He said, 'They gave us the ballots for the local Puerto Rico election,'" Teresa recalls.
It's not clear what happened, or whether the snafu can be fixed in time for his 13 troops to meet New York's deadline.
But his phone call — coming from a true battleground on the eve of the U.S. election — illustrates the many glitches in military voting.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
Overseas Vote Foundation
4786 N. Williamsburg Blvd
Arlington, VA 22207-2836 USA
https://www.overseasvotefoundation.org/overseas/home.htm
Telephone: +1 202 470 2480
Fax: +1 202 318 0653
Press Contact Email: info(at)overseasvotefoundation.org
Voter Contact Email: voterhelpdesk@overseasvotefoundation.org
OSAMABAMA is “elected” by addition of frauds and lies...
Is he really POTUS elected????
I read about this Ohio woman whose husband was deployed in Iraq and she openly laughed about how she took her husbands ballot and voted for Obama! I wonder how many other ballots were hijacked?
Sick Sad World....
Absentee ballots are apparently not counted it the Election is not close . This is not right , and they should not be looked at after the election is decided .
This is why I think we need to strongly advocate nationwide
EARLY VOTING for ALL Armed Forces stationed overseas and on ships at sea .
If ACORN can pull it off , how much better the DoD ?
It can be done folks ! Start pushing!
We owe them this much!
Nope. he's an Usurper of a staged Coup.
What else is new? Dems pull every dirty trick they can to deny the Military, especially overseas, their right to vote.
When was the last time you heard of ACORN recruting voters of the Military?
and the other thing is ...NOBODY is talking about this !
Not Rush Limbaugh , not Sean Hannity , none of the big media
and hardly a thing on the net . What’s wrong with this picture ?
Having been in the Air Force for twenty-two years and finally retired...I can offer some analysis of the situation.
The US military is fully prepared to take ballots and put them on cargo planes and carry them to the nearest mail port in the US within hours (not days or weeks). It has generally been that policy for the past two decades and I don’t know of a single commander who hasn’t made sure that cargo aircraft were in the right places for the week prior to election and made daily trips if necessary to the east or west coast. The problem...bluntly...is not the US military.
As you look across at all fifty states and the 3,141 counties in America...all with varying political candidates and various ballot initiatives...with the vast majority having barely enough electoral clerks to support the county itself. A lot of the absentee ballots are not made or finalized until almost a month prior to the election (common because of various errors that trigger one revision after another).
It would help greatly if the federal government simply said that all absentee ballots would be done and sent to the printers as of a week after the last convention ends. It would help greatly if the federal government mandated a PDF file print-out that any GI could print at the shop or office printer...fill it out and have his commander swear it was an authentic absentee ballot and then delivered to the cargo planes immediately.
I personally believe that neither party truly wants to fix the problem because they would have to fix each state and county’s poorly planned process that they operate with currently. Its the same chatter that we have over voter ID and the huge fight against national ID cards. Both parties are using this game...to help each other. Neither appreciates the military vote or the problems with the national election. Just my humble opinion.
I remember reading about the Florida military ballots during the ‘hanging chad’ situation. The military had gotten the ballots back to the state on time and in proper condition. Apparently, there was no one to count them at that time so state officials said they might not ever be counted. That annoyed the h3ll out of me....
I’m sorry but being a military family this really pisses me off! I don’t care what the rules are for absentee ballots and the other BS.
Anyone serving in out Armed Forces had better get their votes counted first before anyone! We owe it to them. If not for them we would not have the freedom to vote anyway.
We need to do something about this people. We can’t allow them to treat our Troops this way! I am fighting mad!!!
I am not even sure why Ballots must be sent from a theater of operation to America. Could not the different divisions of the branches be their own polling place and the results be called in to the various states?
We can trust ACORN as well as the other nefarious characters at polling places but not our soldiers? To hell with that.
I suspect SELECTED...by the media and ACORN.
I'd be willing to wager that the absentee ballot I sent in from Iraq three weeks before the election was NOT counted.
I gave it my best shot, though.
I am a clerk in a Wisconsin town, and want to assure all of you that regardless of the closeness of an election, all absentee ballots are counted here, both military and regular. I don’t know what happens in the larger cities in Wisconsin, but state law requires that absentee ballots be counted.
I bet NPR wouldn’t be so concerned if this election had been a lot closer.
I read on another FR thread today that the final tally of the votes that pushed Obama over the edge were only half a million.
It was a tally of how many votes Obama won by in specific states that could have turned the election.
In NC, for example, it was only 6997 votes that Obama won by. I remembered because I had urged a NC friend to make sure to vote McCain.
Sorry too lazy at late hour to look up the thread.
Of all places, on HuffPo there is a very interesting article by one Scott Kesterson on the subject of Obama and the military. Nearly 800 replies, mostly condemning the author for choosing such a subject and the troops cited.
Last place you’d expect to see this but it’s amazingly honest. The troops are disgusted and demoralized by the election result. If only I was permitted I’d post the article here.
Says one “As a military officer I will serve whoever is Commander and Chief. But this is the wrong guy for the job, and the wrong time for our country. He’s weak.” says another “This is proof that the media can elect a President.”
Another soldier continued, “You know what really sucks is that NONE OF OUR VOTES COUNT. Sure, we voted, but they are absentee ballots. They only are counted in the event of a tie. What type of statement is that towards democracy. You fight, you die, but your vote while deployed doesn’t count.”
Google link, not HuffPo:
Get used to it, it has been going on for 40 years. Problems that are never fixed, are never fixed because the congress doesn't want them fixed.
Don't worry soon the military will be running elections, not the real Military of course, but the new Civil Defense Force, that Obama says should be as powerful as the regular military.
We will either never have a real election again, or we will have a revolution.
Founding Fathers Tag...And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
No one in my immediate family ever said thanks for serving, (They loved me most of the time. :) don't let your brother be treated that way.
Just another Old Vet's opinion.
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.