Soldiers in Combat may not have their votes counted
By bobmnu
@bobmnu (8157)
United States
October 12, 2010 12:25am CST
It seems that the public civil servants can't get the absentee ballots out to the service men so that they get to vote.(Military tends to votes more Republican) It was the Democrats who challenged the military vote in Florida in 2000 election. Now the ballots are being sent out late and may not get back in time to get counted. In New York many of the ballots have yet to be mailed out and may not get to the soldiers in time to vote and return them to be counted.
The other problem is that military ballots when mailed are canceled by the Military Postal System first them sent back to the US to be canceled by the US Postal
System. Many states require the ballots be canceled by the US Postal Service before election day or they will not be counted. Returning mail (From a Combat Zone) takes a low priority to wounded soldiers, returning soldiers and equipment needing repair or up dating and will not be back in the US Postal System until after the election but were mailed in time. In New York State there are an estimated 320,000 absentee ballots being sent out mostly to the troops.
States can get a waver to send out the ballots late but there is no waver for them being returned late. Many of our fighting men and women will not have their vote counted because the the state election board failed in their job to get the ballots out in a timely manner.
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1 response
@bobmnu (8157)
• United States
20 Oct 10
The problem is that many states do not accept the Military Post Mark and require the USPS Post Mark which comes once the ballots are returned to the US. If you look at the time line for a letter you will see the difficulty. I mail a letter on day 1. It takes 3-5 business days to get to the Army Post Office (APO). From there it may take 3 days to get sorted and prepared for shipment. Mail is shipped on a Space Available basis, which means if the plane has room it will be loaded if not the mail could wait for 5-7 days to be shipped. The other option is to ship it by boat and that will take 8-10 days depending on the route of the ship. Once in country it is sorted and bagged for the different bases again 2-3 days for this. It then travels to the base when a convey is going there and if they have room. This could take up to 10 days to get to the soldier. So we have a letter leaving and by the time it gets to the soldier it could take between 29 - 35 days. It will take the ballot 20 or more days to make the return trip to the USPA possession when it will be postmarked. These estimates are based on what I was told by my son and others that I have sent letters and packages while they were in a war zone.
I don't think electronic voting would work for many of the soldiers overseas as they do not have access to the Internet on all bases or forward bases. To me it would make sense to accept the Military Postmark.
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