.Pentagon seeks to ensure voting access for service members in midterm vote
The Pentagon is moving aggressively to ensure that military members deployed overseas can cast votes in the 2010 midterm elections.
The Defense Department’s Federal Voting Assistance program this week started its training program for voting assistance officers at military bases worldwide. Based on a Pentagon directive, a voting assistance officer needs to be at every unit level.
Military and overseas voters now have to submit a federal post card application every year instead of every two or four years.
Every voting assistance officer has to hand deliver or email a federal post card application to every military member by January 15 and get the word out about the importance of sending the application card to election officials in 2010, said a Pentagon spokeswoman.
There are about 6 million uniformed and overseas citizens who vote absentee. Embassies and consulates overseas also must have voting assistance officers on hand.
For example, close to 100,000 U.S. troops will be deployed to Afghanistan by the November midterm election. Over the next several months, U.S. troops in Iraq will decrease from about 110,000 to 50,000.
Only about six or seven out of every 10 absentee ballots cast by military members are successfully cast. In the general population about nine out of every 10 absentee ballots are successfully cast, according to Bob Carey, Federal Voting Assistance Program director.
“Our goal is to bring the military and overseas citizen absentee voting success rate to that of the general public," Carey said in a statement Friday.
Deployed troops -- at combat outposts and aboard ships -- are the most affected by voting issues. Many military voters also are younger and aren't aware of the processes behind voting, Carey said, according to the Pentagon’s news service.
The Senate Rules Committee, chaired by Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), earlier this year released a study showing that as many as 25 percent of troops stationed overseas went uncounted in the 2008 election.
President Barack Obama at the end of October signed into law legislation sponsored by Schumer to make it easier for deployed military members to cast their vote. Schumer’s had scores of co-sponsors John Cornyn (R-Texas), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Robert Bennett (R-Utah).
The Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act allows military voters to receive registration forms and blank ballots electronically; ensures that states send out ballots a minimum of 45 days in advance of the election so military and overseas voters will receive them in time; improved awareness and use of a failsafe ballot that voters can use if their ballots are lost in the mail; prohibits states from rejecting a marked absentee ballot solely on the basis of a missing notary signature, paper size, and other restrictions; gives more resources to the Department of Defense voting assistance offices who provide voting information and support to service men and women and their families; established standards for record-keeping on military and overseas voting statistics; and encouraging greater enforcement of the military and overseas voting statutes.
Separately, Schumer and Cornyn pushed to have all military installation voting assistance offices as official “voter registration agencies.”
The Pentagon recently agreed to that move. The designation means military bases will offer the same kind of voter registration services provided at motor vehicle departments and state agencies across the country.
The Hill
That sounds as close to a coup as your likely to see in the US. Think they know something we don't? We would still need the public to demand they count the ballots. At least here in Florida they never count absentee or military ballots.
The Defense Department’s Federal Voting Assistance program this week started its training program for voting assistance officers at military bases worldwide. Based on a Pentagon directive, a voting assistance officer needs to be at every unit level.
Military and overseas voters now have to submit a federal post card application every year instead of every two or four years.
Every voting assistance officer has to hand deliver or email a federal post card application to every military member by January 15 and get the word out about the importance of sending the application card to election officials in 2010, said a Pentagon spokeswoman.
There are about 6 million uniformed and overseas citizens who vote absentee. Embassies and consulates overseas also must have voting assistance officers on hand.
For example, close to 100,000 U.S. troops will be deployed to Afghanistan by the November midterm election. Over the next several months, U.S. troops in Iraq will decrease from about 110,000 to 50,000.
Only about six or seven out of every 10 absentee ballots cast by military members are successfully cast. In the general population about nine out of every 10 absentee ballots are successfully cast, according to Bob Carey, Federal Voting Assistance Program director.
“Our goal is to bring the military and overseas citizen absentee voting success rate to that of the general public," Carey said in a statement Friday.
Deployed troops -- at combat outposts and aboard ships -- are the most affected by voting issues. Many military voters also are younger and aren't aware of the processes behind voting, Carey said, according to the Pentagon’s news service.
The Senate Rules Committee, chaired by Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), earlier this year released a study showing that as many as 25 percent of troops stationed overseas went uncounted in the 2008 election.
President Barack Obama at the end of October signed into law legislation sponsored by Schumer to make it easier for deployed military members to cast their vote. Schumer’s had scores of co-sponsors John Cornyn (R-Texas), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Robert Bennett (R-Utah).
The Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act allows military voters to receive registration forms and blank ballots electronically; ensures that states send out ballots a minimum of 45 days in advance of the election so military and overseas voters will receive them in time; improved awareness and use of a failsafe ballot that voters can use if their ballots are lost in the mail; prohibits states from rejecting a marked absentee ballot solely on the basis of a missing notary signature, paper size, and other restrictions; gives more resources to the Department of Defense voting assistance offices who provide voting information and support to service men and women and their families; established standards for record-keeping on military and overseas voting statistics; and encouraging greater enforcement of the military and overseas voting statutes.
Separately, Schumer and Cornyn pushed to have all military installation voting assistance offices as official “voter registration agencies.”
The Pentagon recently agreed to that move. The designation means military bases will offer the same kind of voter registration services provided at motor vehicle departments and state agencies across the country.
The Hill
That sounds as close to a coup as your likely to see in the US. Think they know something we don't? We would still need the public to demand they count the ballots. At least here in Florida they never count absentee or military ballots.
posted by madtom at 8:46 PM
4 Comments:
I'm surprised to hear a Bush hater admit that FL doesn't count military ballots.
Do you ever think about how much better off we would be if AL GORE had been president? You tell me we aren't in historical times when an grade A dumb fuck like Al Gore came with a whisker of being president? Something is afoot and I'm not big on a meddling God, but it just seems supernaturally fucked up beyond all recognition to me.
But, it's satahday night and the Cowboys are kicking the hell out of the Eagles! ---Party on!
Believe it or not, I have the game on in the background
"FL doesn't count military ballots."
FL is run by "You Are Entering Gods Country", backwards hicks, who shut schools to keep the candles burning. They did not count those ballots even when Little brother was governor, what the fuck would you expect me to do about it??
You won't have to do anything, MT. But if you think that is as close to a coup as anything you will see in America, you aren't listening to the same military folks as I am. They worry me. I agree with most of the gripes, but I don't want anyone with such superior weaponry in direct control of my government. O does not control the military if it all comes down. If the elections don't end the tyranny under which we find ourselves, something is going to give. The one third that made America America are about ready to assert itself once more. In the military, the one third is the majority these days, thanks to the voluntary military. . If we make patriot missiles legal to by at walmart, I'll take my chances with the military. Until then, they worry me almost as much as the progressives in the government.
"you aren't listening to the same military folks as I am."
Will at the moment, your the only mil guy I have access too. The people around me are clueless, so I have not heard a thing, I was surprised by this story.
Not like it's anything new, military votes are just a moral thing for the troops, no one takes them seriously, or at least no one used to? And even troops stationed here at home are often on duty outside their home counties, so they use absentee ballots too.
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