Free Republic

Many U.S. troops serving overseas are effectively excluded from voting because they are not given enough time to cast absentee ballots, according to a report released on Tuesday. Sixteen U.S. states and the District of Columbia do not send out their absentee ballots early enough to allow those serving in conflicts like Iraq and Afghanistan to fill them out and return them before their voting deadline, the Pew Center on the States found. Another six states force soldiers, sailors and marines to return their ballots by fax or e-mail to meet the deadline, risking the privacy and security of their...

Here in Chicago (at 521 N. McClurg Court) where I had to vote today, I noticed two things: 1. The line was huge. In the past, I never had to wait. There has never been a line. Now, the wait was a least forty five minutes. 2. The two books containing voter registration and voter signatures were considerably smaller than before. In the past, the voter books were about five inches thick, and now they were about 1/4 of their usual size. I was not in the books. I've voted in every election in my district since moving there in...