Posted on 11/08/2012 10:03:53 AM PST by Lucky9teen
According to the Naval Enlisted Reserve Association, scores of military absentee ballots cast in the 2012 Election will not be counted. U.S. Military personnel and their families are outraged: “Where the hell is this country’s moral compass?!” stated the mother of a 25 year old Marine who served in Afghanistan.
The military mail service is notoriously slow, and lawmakers have said that it could be almost two months after the election before ballots even arrive to be processed.
Add to that the incident on October 19th, just two and a half weeks before the November 6th elections, when a transport plane crashed at Shindad Air Base, destroying almost 5,000 pounds of mail – including absentee ballots being sent to U.S. military serving in Afghanistan. Election officials recommended resending the ballots – just two and a half weeks before the elections (bears repeating).
Michelle Malkin reported in an article published at Townhall.com, “Despite a federal law mandating that every base establish a voting assistance office (the 2009 Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act), the Pentagon reported this summer that it could only contact such offices on half of the military's bases. In Wisconsin alone this election cycle, at least 30 municipalities failed to send absentee ballots to members of the military before the 45-day election deadline.”
The bottom line is that our military, those men and women who risk their lives to protect our freedom, those most deserving to exercise their right to vote, are being prevented from doing so. This is unconscionable.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
Beckel is a giant @$$wipe!
Every election we hear the same old trope. Democrats complain about voters being disenfranchised and Republicans complain about military votes not being counted. If this is a serious issue, then the Republicans need to get off their duffs and actually propose and vote on a remedy. It should be fairly easy if done right- I can’t see how anyone could object out in the open. Otherwise, it’s just sour grapes.
I think about it once or perhaps twice per day as I make a symbolic deposit in my toilet.
I agree, it’s outrageous. If Congress wants to investigate something, put this at the top of the list.
I’m wondering if we are about to see a mass exodus from the armed forces. Partly because of these repeated occurrences of denying them their ability to vote, but also because Obama abandoned the Ambassador and the Seals in Libya, and also because he has sacrificed so many troops in Afghanistan by not protecting them from these “friendly fire” attacks. This exodus may occur primarily from people deciding not to re-up, out of disgust.
It is outrageous and it should not stand. The electoral college should not be allowed to validate the election until all military personal have had the right to vote. How on earth can you justify this? The DOJ fights like a mad dog to make sure states can not require photo ids to vote for fear of disenfranchising some poor slob who can’t find his way to the county clerk who will give him his id. Yet they seem more than willing to disenfranchise those who risk their lives to keep us safe. Absolute evil.
Military Absentee Ballots Delivered One Day Late, Would Have Swung Election For Romney
by drew on November 7, 2012 · 97 comments
WASHINGTON, DC – Sources confirmed today that hundreds of thousands of military absentee ballots were delivered hours after the deadline for them to be counted, with preliminary counts showing that they would have overturned the vote in several states and brought a victory for Governor Mitt Romney.
Officials say the ballots were delivered late due to problems within the military mail system. Tracking invoices show the ballots sat in a warehouse for a month, then they were accidentally labeled as ammunition and shipped to Afghanistan. At Camp Dwyer, Marine Sergeant John Davis signed for them and was surprised at the contents.
“I told Gunny we got a bunch of ballots instead of ammo,” Davis told investigators earlier today. “He told me to file a report of improper delivery and that the chain of command would take care of it. We didn’t hear anything for three weeks. While we were waiting we came under fire so we dumped a bunch of them in the Hescoes. We didn’t dig those ones back out.”
After military officials realized the initial error, the ballots were then sent back to the U.S. but suffered a series of setbacks.
Twelve boxes of ballots were dropped overboard during delivery to the USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) in the Persian Gulf, then while the ship sailed to Bahrain, postal clerks allegedly pocketed whatever ballots they wanted.
The remaining absentee ballots were loaded onto a C-130, but the flight was delayed until November 1st so the crew could get tax free pay for the month. Once the ballots arrived stateside they were promptly mailed to each state’s counting facility, reaching their final destination on November 7th.
“It’s a shame,” Rear Admiral John Dawes said when asked for comment. “I expected a delay so I ordered that everyone cast their votes eight months ago. It’s really unfortunate that our mail system failed us and directly affected the course of history.”
Upon hearing the news, angry Republicans have begun a demand for a recount, but most military absentee voters have shrugged off the news, with many wondering whether the care packages their families sent six months ago were ever going to show up.
.
Read more: http://www.duffelblog.com/2012/11/military-absentee-ballots-delivered-one-day-late-would-have-swung-election-for-romney/#ixzz2BenNnbsE
Follow us: @theduffelblog on Twitter | duffelblog on Facebook
“Well I don’t know about all that. I heard Bob Beckel on The Five last night say....well 50% of the military voted for him (obama), how do you explain that? The Republicans response was...I don’t know.”
Oh, I think they know why, but they can’t say it. What they can’t say is that a large percentage of the military is black now days.
Guys, the Congress keeps passing laws trying to help, but Holder gave a pass to all the dem states that didn’t get the ballots out on time or clean up their voter rolls which by law was to be done years ago. Holder sued every state that tried to make it a clean election. We weren’t allowed to use voter ID in TX even though a large majority voted for it.
Congress gave $75 million dollars to have a voting assistance office on all bases—about 211 total I believe. They held a hearing in Aug or Sept and asked the woman in charge why over half of the phone numbers didn’t work or their calls weren’t returned. She said they had done an excellent job and the problem was just that the phone numbers were out of date. Right.
During the last week to register in VA, the number of military requesting ballots was down over 90%. That can only be by design. Some vets helped get the number to about 40% of previous election which is still outrageous. My son was here on leave and TX is his home state so where he votes either in person or by requesting ballot to be sent to his base. They would not allow he and my daughter in law to vote. Yes, they were registered so that was not an issue. He said, “It’s ok mom, don’t worry about it.” It’s sure as hell is NOT ok to be refused your right to vote for your CIC. He left to see his grandparents the next day and there was someone that understood military voting there and he and my daughter in law were given a federal/state only ballot which is what should have been done here. One of the people that wouldn’t allow them to vote was a dang judge! The woman where they voted took down the info of what happened to them and had a list of all the military having a hard time voting to turn over to elected officials.
If we are going to give Sandy victims the ability to vote then explain why military votes that were done properly but purposefully held back by forces beyond their control are not going to count? Because every vote doesn’t “really” count. If your are a student and voted several times for Obama you can brag about it all over the internet. If you are risking your life for country you get cheated over and over and over again. I am 100% sure the ballots were destroyed and not delivered on time because the polling done showed military 75% for Romney.
A clarification on those numbers. First, the 50-50 split was in Virginia, not nationwide. Secondly, the percentage of blacks in the U.S. military is about the same as it is in the general population. However, exit polling makes no distinction between active duty military and veterans; in other words, a 30-year military retiree is lumped into the same category as someone who served a single hitch back in the 1980s. Virginia has a large number of Africa-American veterans and retirees, concentrated in the DC suburbs and the Hampton Roads region. Their representation in the Virginia population is higher than the national average, since the state has such a large military/retiree population.
To their credit, Team Obama clearly identified who these people were and got them to the polls. By comparison, the Romney campaign just assumed that military personnel, vets and retirees would show up. Some didn’t, others didn’t.
And of course, the GOP slit its own throat by not doing more to protect the rights of military absentee voters. Tens of thousands disenfranchised once again, but Republicans never make more than a token effort to get the problem fixed.
Among active duty personnel, there was a 60-30 split for Romney (according to campaign polls), and I believe that number was fairly accurate. But if many of those individuals can’t vote because their ballot arrives late (or never at all), the GOP is giving away literally thousands of votes, every election cycle.
One lesson from this campaign is abundantly clear: demonization works. The VFW, American Legion, TROA, NCOA and others need to launch a TV campaign showing the faces of the service men and women who were denied the right to vote, along with those who are preventing it: Obama, Harry Reid and Leon Panetta. Keep running the ads until we get a military absentee voting system that works—and find a way to maximize the turnout for non-minority vets.
That’s easy...look at military installation and you’ll figure that one out in a heart beat.
This should be another cause to have the certification of electoral voters challenged. That veterans away from home and who have actually voted on or before November 6 do not get their votes counted is a travesty of government. That many ballots were lost or intentionally delayed going or coming is even worse. As this situation appears to be just one of strange events including multiple possibilities of fraudulent votes/voting there should be a loud outcry for challenging, suspending and even voiding any certification of the electoral votes until such have been aired and cleared. In the past it has been tradition for the President of the Senate (VP Biden in this case) to ask for objections to the certification. Whether Biden would hold to tradition and honor is problematical. However, if there were to be one fervent patriot in the Senate and one fervent patriot in the House of Representatives who would stand up and declare their objection to certification my guess would be that there would be some action/discussion to resolve a dispute. Of course Biden could just gavel the approval as being unanimous without any discussion of all the concerns but approximately 50% of the people in the USA would understand how corrupt democracy can take away what the Founders intended.
This should be another cause to have the certification of electoral voters challenged. That veterans away from home and who have actually voted on or before November 6 do not get their votes counted is a travesty of government. That many ballots were lost or intentionally delayed going or coming is even worse. As this situation appears to be just one of strange events including multiple possibilities of fraudulent votes/voting there should be a loud outcry for challenging, suspending and even voiding any certification of the electoral votes until such have been aired and cleared. In the past it has been tradition for the President of the Senate (VP Biden in this case) to ask for objections to the certification. Whether Biden would hold to tradition and honor is problematical. However, if there were to be one fervent patriot in the Senate and one fervent patriot in the House of Representatives who would stand up and declare their objection to certification my guess would be that there would be some action/discussion to resolve a dispute. Of course Biden could just gavel the approval as being unanimous without any discussion of all the concerns but approximately 50% of the people in the USA would understand how corrupt democracy can take away what the Founders intended.
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.