Official Asks More Time for Military Votes

[underpants]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040803/ap_on_el_ge/military_voting&e=5

WASHINGTON - Thousands of votes from U.S. troops overseas could go uncounted again in November without emergency legislation extending deadlines for the ballots, a Chicago election official warned President Bush (news - web sites) in a letter Tuesday.


Nearly 30 percent of military voters who requested ballots in 2000 didn't get them in time to vote. Theresa M. Petrone, a Democratic member of Chicago's three-person Board of Election Commissioners, told Bush the problem could be solved if he proposed emergency legislation giving election officials up to 14 days after Election Day to collect and count ballots.


Deadlines vary, but most states, including Illinois, require that ballots be received by Election Day. Other states, including Ohio and Florida, count them for up to 10 or more days later, as long as they were signed by Election Day.

A White House spokesman did not immediately return a call for comment. Congressional leaders have opposed amending the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and such emergency legislation is unlikely before November.

[WyLoochka]

1. The ballots MUST be postmarked

Absolutely MUST. Each state should allow a reasonable time frame to wait for receipt of all overseas ballots - military and ex-pat - and then get them counted. But all ballots must be postmarked no later than 11/2/04 or they get thrown out - military or not - period.

"It's the postmark - stupid." We cannot allow anyone, at anytime, anywhere to cast an absentee ballot after the fact and have it come in, without a postmark, and then be counted - as was done in FL in 2000.

If the military is so incompetent it cannot figure out how to legitimately postmark (no contracted Hellyburton or other private company services allowed anywhere near a ballot) - then a minimum of three witness signatures, complete with address and contact info, verifying that the ballot was cast before or on Nov 2 - should be required. Even that is an open door for fraud - so the penalties for falsification should be very onerous and spelled out on the witness affidavit forms.

We are giving billions and billions to the Pentagon - the least they can do - since they have had plenty of advance warning - is to expedite the delivery of ballots to the troops and expedite the processing of completed ballots to get them to a legitimate postmarking station ON TIME. For the ships at sea and the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, I'd consider the witness requirements outlined above.

[underpants]

2. I first heard about this a couple of months ago on Fox

Apparently the APO system was PLANNED out either. They don't know if they will be able to get the ballots TO the soldiers,sailors,and marines let alone get them back in time to the states.

Obviously the Repubs are not happy about this but it is of their own doing.