Chaos about overseas voters...

[stocktrader23]

Suppressing the overseas vote
Record numbers of Americans abroad have registered, but bureaucratic snafus may prevent many from actually voting.

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By Alix Christie



Oct. 21, 2004 | BERLIN -- Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat is pumped. Two weeks ago, sitting in an Internet cafe on Munich's Odeonplatz, the software marketer who crafted a hugely successful voter registration Web site, pulls up numbers that show a remarkable spike in Americans overseas mobilizing to defeat George W. Bush. Between her site and another out of Hong Kong, Democrats have registered 140,000 new voters, 40 percent of them from swing states -- and that is just the tip of the iceberg. Americans abroad, roused to a boiling fury by a Bush doctrine that has smeared America's good name across the globe, are looking like the "silent swing vote" in several key battleground states. Overseas registration for both parties is up by 400 percent over 2000; estimates put the tally of possible civilian votes as high as 2 million.

Then the panicked e-mails start flooding in. Today, less than two weeks before the tightest presidential race in memory, untold thousands of overseas voters still have not received their ballots -- and clearly won't be able to get them back in time. Late primaries and legal challenges to Ralph Nader's appearance on the ballot delayed mailings from half the battleground states. In swing states, including Florida, Ohio and New Mexico, different versions of the ballot have gone out, sowing wild confusion. In Pennsylvania alone, at least three versions were mailed overseas, in successive, chaotic waves -- with Nader and without him, plus a blank one-size-fits-all ballot with no names at all.


Activists now fear that huge numbers of Americans overseas -- both military and civilian -- may be as disenfranchised as they were in 2000, when anywhere from 10 to 40 percent of overseas ballots, depending on the county, just plain never showed up. But, far from helping civilians, the Federal Voting Assistance Program, has dragged its feet. A small liaison office based in the Pentagon, the FVAP provides voting materials to the departments of Defense and State for soldiers and civilians abroad and preaches overseas election law to thousands of local election officials back home.


The Government Accountability Office excoriated the agency for losing thousands of overseas votes in 2000, but the FVAP insists it has corrected its problems this year. Frustrated civilian advocates, however, say the FVAP remains biased and ineffective. Despite reforms, they attest, it still has not shaken its Pentagon roots: It spends the bulk of its energy getting out a heavily Republican vote among a half-million service people -- but has failed the far greater numbers of civilians (an estimated 4 million, by most counts) who tend to vote a different way.

The tsunami of overseas civilian voters this year has only made the inequity more glaring. The agency was overwhelmed by a flood that has clogged its fax lines, telephones and e-mail. It has blocked access to its Web site to civilian voters abroad, given military voters access to electronic ballot-request systems that civilians cannot use, and subcontracted sensitive election work to a company with strong Republican ties. For months, it failed to heed requests from the State Department to post an emergency substitute ballot on its Web site that will mainly help civilians living far from consulates and military bases. Finally, on Oct. 21, with only 12 days till the election, it will post a downloadable version of the federal write-in absentee ballot, known as FWAB: a last-ditch device intended for the precise situation in which thousands of overseas voters now find themselves.

Those who've busted their guts to get out the overseas civilian vote on both sides are relieved but still angry. "Considering 2000 and the fact everybody knew this was going to be a close race, they should have seen it coming," says Joan Hills, co-chair of Republicans Abroad. "The obstacles that have been thrown up are incredible," says Jim Brenner, executive director of AOK (Americans Overseas for Kerry), an arm of the Democratic National Committee. Samuel F. Wright, director of the Military Voting Rights Project of the National Defense Committee, and a Navy Reserve officer who has spent 25 years observing the FVAP, says "Frankly, I'm not impressed with them. They're sort of going through the motions. I've been pinging on DoD for four years that this is the perfect situation for the emergency ballot."

[webmaster x]

OOOPS

[strats]

silent swing vote my ass. that is total bullshit

kerry is way ahead, all the polls are faked.

[stocktrader23]

Originally posted by strats
silent swing vote my ass. that is total bullshit

kerry is way ahead, all the polls are faked.

The majority of overseas voters would be voting Kerry.

[Jakke PNG]

How fucking hard can it be to do a proper election?
I can't seem to recall any drama regarding elections in any country that isn't ruled by a dictator. I could be wrong though, but I just don't recall any....