Posted on 11/02/2008 1:37:48 AM PST by Marie
Dear America,
As you well know, our military folks are loosing their right to vote in droves this election.
http://www.foxnews.com/video-search/m/21310185/ballot_battle.htm?pageid=27100
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2122304/posts
They're ballots are being thrown in the garbage and turned away.
These men and women are putting their lives on the line to preserve our right to live in security and not in fear.
Please, consider this: If standing in a three or four hour long line seems too difficult, too uncomfortable for them, imagine standing in 120' heat in full "battle rattle" with a 40 pound rucksack for hours on end. Driving to the voting booth is tricky in heavy traffic, finding parking - almost impossible. But our troops risk their lives every time they drive down a road and have to constantly deal with the very real threat of roadside bombs.
So please, if you're considering staying home because you don't think your vote will matter, if it's just too damned inconvenient, then give your vote to a service member. Stand in line for him. Bring comfortable clothes, good shoes, a good book and a couple of bottles of water and endure the traffic for him.
Our guys work hard and sacrifice much to protect you. Please give up one evening to protect them from the democrats. Please, pick their votes out of the garbage cans.
bump for your soldier husband and many others who serve
Bump for my heroes, and their votes.
One thing I’d like to know...it’s been reported that the wives want their men home so badly that they will vote for Obama.
Is that true?
For the most part, our service members are a very noble lot. But in every large group, you're going to have a few bad apples. For the most part, the spouses are stalwart, strong, faithful people who support their mates with their whole hearts. But there are some who are selfish and naive.
This is true anywhere you go.
Thank you, Quix! (*chuckling!*)
Marie, bless you for your sacrifice. I know a bit of what you are speaking. My husband was a career soldier in another war.
It is a national travesty that our military folks have to worry one second about whether their vote is going to be counted. Lord knows, they have enough to worry about!
Marie, thank you to your husband and yourself for your collective Service (for they also Serve who stand and wait)...
Here’s a Dumb Kiwi Question: precisely how the Devil do Military votes get “thrown out”? Who is doing this, and why are they not hanged from the nearest lamp-post?
In the US surely destroying somebody else’s vote would be a Federal felony.
In New Zealand we would not tolerate anybody’s vote being thrown out by anyone. Hell, our Ballots are not permitted to leave the polling station: not even the spoiled ones, not even the blank ones.
So how does this happen to the Military ballots? And what can be done to put an immediate stop to this outrage?
There was most definitely the appearance of an attempt to suppress the vote from Iraq this year. The mail inexplicably becoming "slow" around August when most of us were requesting absentee ballots from our home counties was one sign.
However, the Voting Assistance Office stayed on top of it, ecnouraging everyone via numerous flyers and e-mails to go get a provisional ballot from them and mail it in.
People here, military and civilian alike demonstrated a higher desire to vote this year than in any of the nearly five years I have been here. And I was here for the '04 election.
If I hear of specific situations where these votes are being discarded or thrown out, I will happily join any effort to reverse that ASAP.
In Virginia, I believe ballots were getting thrown out (or at least threatened to be thrown out, I’m not sure of the exact status) on technicalities between the Federal military absentee ballots and state law requirements.
As I said back in 2000 when Gore’s lawyers were all over FL getting military absentee ballots thrown out on minor technicalities, this stuff is playing with fire. This kind of stuff is how military coups get started. No sane person wants to see that.
Military serving overseas have to vote by “absentee” ballot and mail them to their home district. These districts collect the ballots and some are rejected for various reasons such as, incorrect or incomplete info or arriving after the deadline. These decisions are somewhat flexible and in the past Military ballots were given the maximum consideration.
Ever since the debacle in Florida in 2000, when the Dems realized that “disqualifying” the military absentee vote brought them close to turning the whole state, they have been doing it with shocking and unreported regularity.
Yes someone should literally hang for this but the people of my country, by and large, don’t seek out such information, they wait for the MSM to feed it to them and thus never are awakened to the travesty going on in our own dooryard.
I really don’t know if the problem can be summed up easily. Most of the time the votes are thrown out on a technicality or arrive too late. Some of these guys have huge delays in the mail that sweeps the rug out from under them. Some states won’t send the ballots out early enough to get them to the soldier and back again. Every state has it’s own rules for absentee votes and I think it gets difficult to stay on top of all of them.
Whatever the reasons, only about 5% of our uniformed service men and women end up having a voice in our voting process. And trust me, it’s not because they don’t get it or they are apathetic.
I hate to say it, but after the ACORN voter fraud crap and the difficulty we have counting military votes, I’m thinking that we have to streamline and secure the voting process. Too many states are making a mess out of this. An election here is starting to resemble that of a Banana Republic.
Thanks, mates, for the explanations.
WOW. Throwing away military votes would be EXTREMELY DANGEROUS during a time of war. Particularly if the party doing the throwing away was also backing a War Wimp who had never served, and was positioning himself to become CinC and declare the war LOST...
Don’t these DEMs think things thru carefully? I’m not so sure I’d like the thought of the largest and most powerful military force in the world initiating a Civil War in the US — or even a coup d’etat.
As you say, that’s playing with fire.
> I hate to say it, but after the ACORN voter fraud crap and the difficulty we have counting military votes, Im thinking that we have to streamline and secure the voting process.
It needs to be said: the US voting process is a shambolic mess. US Federal elections should not be state responsibilities: they should be run by the Department of Internal Affairs through an autonomous Electoral Commission, exactly like they are done in New Zealand. And the US Post should be responsible for voter registration.
> Too many states are making a mess out of this. An election here is starting to resemble that of a Banana Republic.
There’s no “starting” about it: sadly, your election is much worse than what happens in most Banana Republics. Fiji and Zimbabwe for example conduct very good elections: implementation of the election results is where they always run into problems...
God Bless America
*DieHard*
I’d put it on billboards on every street in the nation, were I able.
THANK YOU!
Sorry Mam, but the bottom feeders will make sure that for each of us that do stand in line here, that 4 dead people, illegal aliens, or other non existant folks vote, thus wiping our vote out.
These people are intent on stealing this elction and I don’t lnow that we can stop them this time..
Not this soldier’s wife!!
My husband served in the USAF. My father USMC, mother served USN, Korea. Father-in-law, Army-Air Corps, WWII. Various cousins and other relatives served in Vietnam.
I wasn’t happy with the choice of McCain as the nominee. I decided (long before I knew anything else about BO) that McCain would get my vote because of the troops.
Thank you for that excellent post! Please tell your husband that our family honors him for his commitment and sacrifice as we honor and pray for all of the troops and their families. If anyone tries to suppress or discard their votes, we civilians owe it to them to fight that effort with all our might. Surely, if we unite, we can not only prevent that from happening in this election but in all future elections.
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