"Pentagon Focuses on Voting Plan for Troops"

[GreenPartyVoter]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon, faced with nearly a half-million troops overseas, has improved its Web site for absentee voters and promised faster mail service as it pushes several programs to avert a repeat of the balloting problems of the 2000 election.

Television and radio announcements and banners in commissaries and classrooms are part of the Defense Department plan to help the 492,000 troops abroad have better access to ballots back home.

Nearly 70 percent of the 258,000 service members overseas during the last presidential election cast ballots, compared with 51 percent of the general public and 37 percent of U.S. civilians overseas, said Charles Abell, principal deputy to the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

Of those who didn't vote, nearly 22 percent said they never received ballots, according to Pentagon research, and 7 percent said they got them late. Twenty-six percent said they didn't know how to get a ballot.

http://apnews1.iwon.com/article/20040807/D84AA2TG1.html