Troops may run out of time to cast ballots

Dallas Morning News ^ | Nov. 1, 2008 | JOHN RILEY

[FocusNexus]

For U.S. troops serving overseas, nothing comes easy. Not even voting.

Military members may not have enough time to complete and mail in their absentee ballots for Tuesday's election, thanks to slow mail delivery, lack of information sharing among election officials, and procedural errors.

In the 2006 elections, about a third of the close to 1 million absentee ballots requested by uniformed overseas voters were returned and tallied, essentially disenfranchising the remaining 600,000-plus service members, according to the federal Election Assistance Commission.

Barack Obama and John McCain have called on state election officials to reduce the voting obstacles for preventing military personnel from voting. And Texas Sen. John Cornyn sponsored a bill that passed the Senate this month directing the Department of Defense to make absentee voting easier for service members stationed abroad. Mr. Cornyn has also launched a related Web site.

But problems persist, as illustrated by one Garland native's struggle to vote in Tuesday’s election.

[tomkat]

The scum of the f'n earth can vote four times in Philly and Chicago, but the useless slugs in DC sit on their miserable asses and let our military be disenfranchised.

If ever tar and feathers were called for, now's the time.

[tflabo]

What a crock of BS is the voting process....illegals and homeless get to vote from park benches but our brave military can’t even cast ballots. What a goat copulation
of an election system....more like turd world fiascos.

[littlehouse36]

This is too sickening for me to fully read.

[dormee]

HOLY COW!! THIS HAS TO BE FIXED. WITH 68% OF ENLISTED SERVICE PEOPLE SUPPORTING MCCAIN, WE NEED THIS TO BE FIXED!

[Frantzie]

This pisses me off. We had this crap in 2000 and Bush or Cheney should have made sure that our troops votes were counted. This is totally unacceptable.

[Aria]

Bush shoulda fixed this!

[FocusNexus]

I think you should read it, to get the full impact.

Our brave troops have to fight harder to cast a vote, than to defeat the enemy.

It's a disgrace.

Instead of making it easy for our troops to vote, the bureaucracy is making it harder.

[FocusNexus]

Ballots are distributed at the state level, so Bush could not fix this. There are just too many Democrats at state level.

[ajay_kumar]

For that I blame GW Bush and the GOP congress when they had the majority, in not fixing the problem of military voting, voter registration and voting procedures. I am disappointed in president Bush in that he hardly ever used the veto power to curb spending. On top of that he pushed the prescription bill with money borrowed from future generation of Americans.

[Carling]

Well, you can blame Bush all you want, but if you are a true conservative you would understand that elections are the states’ jurisdiction.

Unless, of course, you wanted Bush to trample all over the Constitution and impose federal law in place of states’ rights.

[ajay_kumar]

Federal law always supersedes state laws. The problem could have been fixed when the congress was majority GOP.

[Aria]

There must be a way. The feds are pretty good at mandating certain state activities by threatening to withhold funds from the states. If the tables were turned and these soldiers were all voting Democrat you can be sure the rats would figure out something.

[K-oneTexas]

You are so right. This is atrocious and shows exactly what Congress thinks of the military

[ajay_kumar]

Elections are supremely important to the well being of this nation. Just look at the mess we have now with Acorn, motor voter, no proof required of citizenship, no ID required to vote, no checks whatsoever. This is one area where we are no better than banana republics. We have 35 thousand federal laws on the books which supercede state laws. I would have no problem with Feds usurping state rights when it comes to our elections.

[ScreamingFist]

Again.....what a f’ing surprise. This should surprise noone....when McCain wins this needs to be fixed. As a top priority......

[AliVeritas]

Yet same day voting scours the land, as well as several day voting. The homeless guy can use a bench address, get driven to the polls with his cigs and bottle paid, ACORN and O camp workers can move to states for 30 days to vote in different states, Bruner can sit on 200,000 fraud regs, yet the men who fight for this country have to sue to get counted and worry about ballots on the war front?

I’m not having it.

[Domandred]

I’ve always wondered why military bases don’t have polling booths and why they have to go absentee

[MissouriConservative]

“If ever tar and feathers were called for, now’s the time.”

I’m thinking that if over 600,000 of our armed military are disenfranchised...there’s going to be a lot more than tar and feathering going on.

[Cacique]

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