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Simplified Voting for our troops; This sounds like a very good idea
Topic Started: Dec 21 2006, 10:45 AM (192 Views)
Condor
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Ruler of the Mountain
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From the Air Force Times:

Simplified voting procedures urged for troops

By Rick Maze
Staff writer


The head of an organization that is trying to help service members vote in U.S. elections is asking for a Christmas gift for the military: an easier way to vote by absentee ballot.

Samuel Wright, head of the Arlington, Va.-based Military Voting Rights Project, said in a newsletter mailed Wednesday to federal, state and local election officials that military voters are being disenfranchised by current procedures, in which ballots must be requested, received and returned by mail. And even if service members follow all the required steps, having their vote counted is still not a sure thing, Wright said.


There are two major problems, he said. First, it is becoming increasingly difficult for election officials to prepare ballots in time to be mailed to service members because of late primaries, runoff elections and even lawsuits over who will be on the ballot. Second, service members who request ballots subsequently may be deployed, so when the ballot is ready to be mailed, they’re no longer at the location from which they requested it.

“The military voter is all too often a moving target,” Wright said.

Because of security concerns, Wright said he does not expect election officials to support a fully electronic remote voting system in which ballots could be cast over the Internet, but he has an alternative. He proposes that the first two steps of voting — requesting and receiving a ballot — be done over the Internet, while the last step — returning the ballot — would still be done by mail.

If election officials could have ballots online to be downloaded 10 to 15 days before the election, that would be enough time for a service member to print a copy of the ballot, vote and mail it back in time for it to arrive by Election Day, Wright said.

The Military Voting Rights Project, affiliated with the nonpartisan National Defense Committee, testified before the Senate in September. Bob Carey, a senior fellow with the National Defense Committee, said voter disenfranchisement among service members “has been a persistent and common occurrence, rather than the exception.”

“A substantial minority, and in some cases a majority, of these brave military personnel have regularly suffered disenfranchisement through no fault of their own,” Carey said.


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Herb
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Ruler of the Mountain
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I think this is a good step in solving the problem.
I managed to vote in almost every election held while I was in the Corps. How many ballots arrived on time I have no way of knowing.
In my home state we requested absentee ballots and only had to renew the request when our actual address changed. I always used my unit address for voting so that the mail would be automaticly forwarded when we deployed.
Many times the reciept date was close to the election date.
Has anyone done any kind of survey of election officials to find out how many absentee ballots were returned late? How about how many were from military members?
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bsb006
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That really makes a lot of sense. For all absentee voters. Some workers get sent out of town at a moments notice or get delayed for reasons out of their control. (work, family illness, etc) Mail here in the states is pretty fast and if it is postmarked by Friday - it should arrive by Tuesday at the latest.

This would save tons of time for the troops since mail overseas is so much slower. Seems to me, to be safe they now have to start the process at least 6-8 weeks early. Am I right? If so, that is awful. Like they don't have enough on their minds, they have to think about the November election in early September? In September, I haven't even made up my mind yet in some cases.

I remember Gary saying he wasn't sure he got his in on time due to mail issues.

I hope this works.
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