Protecting the Military vote

It's the right thing to do. That's why the Democrats probably won't

By Soren Dayton Posted in 2008 | Democrats | Electoral Corruption | Military voting — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

There was an important article over in the Weekly Standard by Hans A. von Spakovsky and Roman Buhler about military voting:

A survey by the Election Assistance Commission shows that of almost 1 million ballots requested in the last election by overseas and military voters, only about one third were successfully cast and counted.

Some of it is illegal and deliberate. For example in 2004, Pennsylvania Governor ("Fast Eddy") Rendell tried to deliberately disenfranchise military voters while running a GOTV drive in prisons. But much is accidental, logistical, and structural:

The most common reasons for this failure were that the requested ballots sent to voters were returned as "undeliverable" and that marked ballots were received too late to be counted.

This is a tremendously important issue both morally--making sure that our soldiers have their basic rights--and politically. Undoubtedly, the Democrats, ACORN, and their allies will continue to commit election crime while Congressional Democrats will try to find ways to undermine military voting. Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-22) has introduced legislation on this and von Spakovsky and Buhler have their own suggestions about other options.

Over the next 6 months, we are going to watch the Democrats make promises that help their corrupt allies, like Barack Obama's promise to stop oversight of the Teamsters, those pillars of ethical management. Here's a simple thing that they could do for America's heroes. Somehow I doubt they will move on that.

Overseas Military votes must be counted... by From ME to you

the big problem is that every soldier must take the time to contact the city or town where they are registered and request that ballot. Then that physical ballot has to get to the GI in question and get mailed back to, hopefully, arrive in time to actually be counted.

I would recommend an electronic ballot sent through military channels and verified by such. If a hard paper ballot is really required they could be printed out at the soldier's unit HQ and distributed to him immediately and then sent through the mail system. This would save time in at least one direction.

As to the Democrats wanting to squelch the military vote. I wouldn't be surprised.

si vis pacem para bellum

Reply To This — User Info — #1

I seem to recall similar kinds of comments by Alan Charles

from Democrats about the Republicans during the 2000 and 2004 elections. As to Governor Rendell trying to disenfranchise military voters, the Pennsylvania governmental website seems to say otherwise, but who knows. http://www.state.pa.us/papower/cwp/view.asp?A=11&Q=438896

Reply To This — User Info — #2

Democrats are not known for valuing military votes. by Martin A. Knight

Your recollection reversed the parties.

Both times, especially 2000, Democratic poll watchers tried their damndest to ensure as many military ballots were thrown out as possible.

Romney/Pace 2008

Reply To This — User Info — #3

Been there, done that. by moijea

DS has had a difficult time voting, even when not deployed. I believe in 2004, he actually had to cast a provisional ballot by fax, which the county elections department worked to get to him just in the nick of time on election day, because the absentee ballot they sent him SEVERAL weeks earlier had gotten lost in the military mail system. Time is the biggest enemy.

Perhaps they need to have each of the main bases in Iraq and Afghanistan actually BE election preparation/polling places where they gather ballots, instead of each soldier mailing their ballots back individually. They could set up months in advance and assist deployed military in registering AND requesting their ballots.

One thing is for sure, SOMETHING needs to be done.

Reply To This — User Info — #4

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