A Web site maintained by the Department of Defense is blocking access to non-military Americans. Could it be worried that expatriates are leaning toward Kerry?
On Monday, the International Herald Tribune reported that the Pentagon is restricting international access to the Web site for the Federal Voting Assistance Program, the official government agency that helps Americans living abroad register to vote in the November election.
According to the IHT, Americans who connect to the Internet using one of several foreign Internet service providers have reported difficulty logging in to the voting-assistance site. The Pentagon confirmed that it is blocking traffic from these ISPs -- which provide Internet service in 25 countries -- but it declined to say why.
News of the Pentagon's traffic-blocking immediately aroused alarm and suspicion among voting-rights activists, and it's not hard to see why. For the 6 million Americans living abroad, signing up to vote at home is a daunting task, a Byzantine process that differs for each citizen depending on his or her home state and even home county.
Over the past year, the Federal Voting Assistance Program Web site has been widely advertised all over the foreign press as
the way for Americans to get help on how to vote in the upcoming election. The site, which is maintained by the Department of Defense, is a nonpartisan, comprehensive, and official clearinghouse for voting registration information. Now that it's been put off-limits to many Americans just before registration deadlines kick in, activists fear that Americans will be unfairly barred from voting this year.
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http://salon.com/tech/feature/2004/09/21/overseas_voting/index.html
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