Support the Troops by Actually Counting Their Votes
One of the sad truths about being a deployed member of the armed service is that you miss important dates such as weddings and birthdays. One of the more disappointing truths about serving in the military is that when it comes to elections, many of our votes are not counted. An alarming statistic from the Heritage Foundation is that fewer than 20% of military personnel were able to cast votes that were counted in 2008. The Republican Party continues to believe in a strong military and improving military members’ voting procedures would go a long way in proving that support. I would recommend they show the troops how they care by simplifying the absentee voting process and allowing their voices to be heard.
The government has some legal statutes in place to facilitate military voting, like the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). The Department of Justice helps oversee this program and enforce its compliance. The law states that uniformed service members must be allowed to vote absentee and “ballots should be mailed to overseas addresses at least 45 days prior to an election in order to ensure adequate time for a ballot to reach a voter and be returned.”
Even with these laws in place, many military absentee ballots are thrown out and, frequently, it is because the ballots arrive after the election deadline. With the sacrifice of so many in the military, it is reprehensible that many states do not allow time for members to mail back their ballots.
Congress created the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002 to help with the voting process for military families. However, it is clear from the statistic of military votes counted in 2008 that HAVA hasn’t helped like it was supposed to. Better legislation needs to be put in place to correct this immediately. Fortunately, on the House side, Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is trying to change that with his bill, H.R. 2393, the Military Voting Protection Act of 2009. The main points of the bill are to better inform deploying military members and their family of the absentee process and use express mail delivery to expedite the operation. Furthermore, on the Senate side, Senator John Cornyn has introduced S. 1026 and has 34 sponsors of essentially the same bill.
I’m so accustomed to hearing this that it no longer shocks me. Some goofy little clerk (D-somewhere) is going to do his/her part for the Democrat candidate by dragging out the distribution of absentee ballots. Geez.
I sail with the Military Sealift Command as a civilian mariner. Last primary election, I wrote to my Illinois County Clerk and requested an absentee ballot via e-mail less than 48 hours after I was eligible to request it (in December 2007). I needed it in time to vote in the primaries for Super-Tuesday. Our ship had been pierside in a US eastern seaboard port during this entire time. Eventually, it became apparent I would not receive the absentee ballot in time, so I requested the Illinois County Clerk mail a ballot via overnight mail. This tact worked. I ultimately received the ballot, returned it, and was assured by the County Clerk that my ballot was counted. This assurance was made possible by an SASE I enclosed with my ballot which requested notification whether my ballot was or was not counted.
This shameful situation exists because the Fleet Post Office consistently fails to do its job and prioritize mail delivery to military commands. I had asked the ships master to “rattle the fleet post office’s cage to determine the status of frustrated mail” but even he was able to achieve any results! If this failure is systematic, one would think that the head of the Navy Fleet Post Office would be able to fix it. I have been with the Military Sealift Command for 7 years now and am unable to determine who this person is or how to contact him. I’ll have to continue to have my absentee ballots mailed overnight to continue to vote successfully. Sure hope my ship doesn’t sail anywhere; I’d never get my ballots in time!
While working in Bagram, Afghanistan as a civilian contractor I tried to vote in the presidential election. But the ballot I printed from a US government website turned out to be unacceptable to my county registrar’s office back home. I got the ballot back a week after the election (I mailed it three weeks before the election. Enclosed in the same envelope was a county approved ballot; it was not a state of Texas ballot, but one designed and used exclusively by Fort Bend county.
How quaint! Those who are dying in idotic wars,should have the right to vote! What a dangerous notion.The author risks arrest from Obama’s security services for both hate speech,and sedition!
This should be priority number one for our military.
Sign up at http://www.handsoffamerica.net to support our troops.
Let’s only follow the laws we want !@?
The statement in this article that “The law states that uniformed service members must be allowed to vote absentee and “ballots should be mailed to overseas addresses at least 45 days prior to an election in order to ensure adequate time for a ballot to reach a voter and be returned” is incorrect. UOCAVA DOES NOT contain ANY such requirement.
As a matter of fact, the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness testified before the Senate Committee on Rules on Adminsitration on May 13, 2009, dealing with the Fed’l Voting Assistance Program that it was a DoD legislative priority that states BE REQUIRED to “provide at least 45 days between the ballot mailing date and the date ballots are due.” Please do the required research and correct this misstatement.
Great Article !! and so, so true unfortunately.
For years citizens groups and (you guessed it, evil liberals) have argued vehemently for easier methods of voting and more money for better voting systems from sea to shining sea and guess who has opposed it as “big spending?” (you guessed it, evil conservatives) The part of no, that preaches more freedom for the world goes out of its way to discourage more voter participation. Why? I think its obvious, they dont want more people voting cuz they know who they will vote for. Even on veterans pay, rights and health care the party of no talks a good game but over the years, its been Col. John Murtha and other and other great congressional democrats that have had to come through with the money. The conservatives should be ashamed indeed. So unclam and vote more money for our troops !!!
With the ubiquitous use of CAC ID the military should be primed for a reliable, verifiable on-ine voting process. Using the digital certificates in the chip, coupled with the PIN, we can verify identity and elegibility and ensure integrity of the process.
Obviousls, that should have read “on-line voting process.”
in 2008 the majority of deployed military members donated to then-Senator Obama
That should say that in 2008, the majority of contributions to presidential candidates from deployed military members went to then-Senator Obama.
Obama may have had the support of the majority of military personnel who made political contributions, but it’s very unlikely that he (or any other candidate) would receive contributions from over 50% of all deployed military personnel.
Even with the unending stream of corruption in this intensely Democratic Congress and White House, this particular bit of corruption makes me almost physically ill. As far as I am concerned, anyone who knowingly participates in the denial of the vote to members of the military should be sent to hard time in prison.
[i]That should say that in 2008, the majority of contributions to presidential candidates from deployed military members went to then-Senator Obama.[/i]
That’s the correct grammer but I sincerely doubt that’s true.
Obama’s campaign website deliberately disconnected all credit card safeguards which would keep the campaign from collecting money from stolen cards, cards issued by foreign banks, cards with mismatch to the correct billing address, etc.
Since we know for a fact that the Obama campaign collected money from all of those kinds of cards as well as fake names and fake employment, its much more likely that unethical Obama supporters frauded enough “military” donors to give the campaign a faked propaganda victory. Whether the fraud was from completely fraudlent donors or from legit donors who were persuaded to falsify their location and employment data is irrelevant.
#12…No, they should be reassigned as a “community organizer” in some remote Afghan village.
Every election, the Democrats stage an effective bureaucratic “anti-ACORN” campaign to insure that as many military votes as possible are not cast or not counted. They (not we!) have drawn the conclusion that patriots will vote for the other guys.
All it would take to fix this completely is a direct order from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to each service branch, instructing the relevant commanders to make certain that every soldier and sailor is provided with a ballot, with sufficient time to mail it and have it counted.
Seems like the generals in charge are responsible. But they’re passing the buck. Why?
SuperDave, it’s not as easy as that. Great efforts are taken to promote, aducate and provide voting assistance, but the choice to vote or not, like the choice of for whom to vote, is a personal decission and should never be forced. Likewise, in a unit the CO’s political bent is often known, so it is obviously improper for him to be seen as requiring junior personnel to vote. The vast majority of them would never intentionally try and improperly affect a subordinate’s vote, but in this sort of situation it may not be possible to avoid the impression of impropriety, nor to anticipate the adverse impact on moralle should some members perceive an implied influence.
Secondly, as the article most clearly states, there are often efforts to ignore or subject to greater scrutiny even ballots received on time. Once that ballot gets mailed back or if it never gets mailed from the home state in the first place it is clearly outside the authority or reach of amy general. This is most clearly not an issue of leadership but rather one of process.
Yawn, my absentee ballot arrived overseas too late to let me vote against Jimmy Carter in the election he won. As a civilian, I made sure I showed up to vote against him in the election he lost.
The government has no interest in solving this problem.
SuperDave, the ballots do not come from the DOD, they come from the individual state Board of Elections. As I just stated, the government has no interest in solving this problem.
Poor Citizen, you are such a doop. During the Bush/Gore election, the Dems did eveything they could to not count the oversees military vote. Check you facts. Murtha is famous for getting out ahead of the court case in which our soldiers were being charged with murder in Iraq. Unfortunately, Murtha called them all guilty. They were later found innocent. Good old Murtha.
Dems will fight tooth and nail to allow criminals to vote, and they don’t want us to show picture ID’s at the polling booth. You’re a proud bunch. The only reason can be to allow for corruption.
Poor Citizen, hey I’ve got an idea- let’s take some of the money we’re spending on welfare and spend it on streamlining absentee ballots for our troops!
It makes me effing sick to think that the very folks who defend the liberties that we enjoy are deprived of one of those liberties. There people go through miserable deployments, and miserable conditions 24/7 for the very people who deprive them.
And not one dam new law is ever gonna change anything. Laws never stopped crime, laws never stopped deficits, and laws never stopped a criminal and entirely corrupted Congress from getting rich off of the fruits of our labors.
Just vote these crooks out in 2010 and demand that the new reps do something about this effing outrage – or they’ll be out of a job too.
I’ve had, and heard about enough of this kind of crap. Enough is enough !
This sickening scandal has been around for some time. From the late Bob Novak, July 23 2008:
One presidential staffer who is familiar with the situation privately dismisses the Pentagon bureaucrats as “hopeless.” In a lame-duck administration counting the days before a troubled eight years finally end, American fighting men and women who are deprived of their right to vote constitute the least of the White House’s worries.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/23/AR2008072302905.html
Hey, good idea. Well, not ALL the troops. Certainly not the phony ones.
“Now and Then: Hey, good idea. Well, not ALL the troops. Certainly not the phony ones.”
Oh, you mean, like all those fake “veterans” against war that the left trots out every time they need one to make it look like they are actually pro-military?
In many localities NO absentee ballots are counted unless there are enough of them to make a difference in any one race on the ballot.
So for a given area let’s say there are only 100 absentee ballots, but the closest race is 500 votes apart, the ballots are ignored. But let’s say the race for city council is only 50 votes apart, then ALL ballots are counted for ALL races, not just for the city council race.
This is quite common and the policy in many localities. I still believe to this day that the George W. Bush won the popular vote in 2000 IF THE MILITARY VOTES HAD BEEN COUNTED. The Florida votes were running 2/3 in favor of Bush. The diffeerence was 543,982 votes througout the country. How many absentee votes weren’t counted because they wouldn’t have made a difference in the race? Not that it matters. The electoral was the only one that mattered.
Still I was disappointed that my military vote was probably never counted in my home state until I left the military and started voting in person.
PLEASE READ THIS ARTICLE It made my blood boil ! http://www.redstate.com/soren_dayton/2009/10/03/virginia-argues-that-they-dont-need-to-send-out-military-absentee-ballots-in-time-to-vote/
24. geokstr:
No, I mean all those patriotic young soldiers who Rush Limbaugh slammed to make a cheap political point because some of theme disagree with hist stunted world view and chickenhawk butt pimple patriotism.
Clear enough now?
Let the troops show their votes.
Save us the crocodile tears, Now and Then. We Vet’s and Active Duty soldiers know better.
We’d have more respect for leftists like you if you just stuck to spitting on us, and calling us, “baby killers” at the airport.
29. deet13:
You don’t have a problem with me (or my Purple Heart). You have a problem with Rush.
N&T: I have no problem with you, but think you’ve bought the anti-Rush summary of his comment without regard to the actual content. His statement was specifically concerning what was, at the time, a number of high profile anti-war “vets” who, upon closer examination, either had never served at all or not in the capacity/theater they claimed. From what you say, you have been under fire, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want some wannabe complete with 18 rows of ribbons to pretend to be speaking for you as a battle buddy.
31. submandave:
Not true. I heard the comment live. I heard the dissembling and dancing that followed, I read the transcripts. I have complete knowledge of the matter. His reference was not about length or depth of service, it was about soldiers who disagreed with the way the war was being prosecuted. And because they disagreed, he called them phony, just like he called civilians who disagreed unpatriotic. I stand by my statement.