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Home » News » Election

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Military vote by mail: Mostly absent

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Many overseas ballots rarely get counted

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  • **AP FILE**
U.S. Army National Guard Capt. Monica McGrath, 29, was a communications specialist at Camp Speicher, a U.S. base near Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad, when this photo was taken Sept. 23, 2008.
  • U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Samuel Fairbank, 30, from Ocean City, Md. is shown at Camp Speicher, a U.S. base near Tikrit, 80 miles north of Baghdad on Sept. 23, 2008. He's in the 12th month of his second tour in Iraq, and also spent six months in Afghanistan in 2001. He said his unit has a voting assistance officer and other officials who help soldiers vote. Associated Press. **FILE PHOTO**
  • A small box of absentee ballots from men and women serving in the Armed Forces sits in the Hinds County Circuit Court office, in Jackson, Miss, in October 2004. American soldiers in far-flung battle zones typically vote by mail that must be delivered to local election districts across the United States. Ballots are delayed, get lost or go to the wrong location. Associated Press.
  • In September, Army soldiers (above) fill out voter absentee ballots at Camp Phoenix in Kabul, Afghanistan. ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOGRAPHS.
  • In July, presidential candidate Barack Obama (left) and top U.S. military commander in Iraq Gen. David H. Petraeus take a helicopter ride over Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City, Iraq. American soldiers can risk death for their country, but they can't always vote for their commander in chief.
  • Army Capt. Katherine Wardlow (above), assigned to forward operating base Kalsu, south of Baghdad, Iraq, is the intelligence officer for the 4th Brigade Special Troops Battalion and heads the unit's effort to help soldiers register and cast absentee ballots.
  • In April 2007, Republican presidential candidate John McCain visits the popular Shorja market in central Baghdad, Iraq.

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By ASSOCIATED PRESS

American soldiers can hump 60-pound packs through the broiling desert, kill for their country and die for it, but they can't always vote for their commander in chief.

A solution has long been proposed: Just get rid of the byzantine process which forces those in far-flung battle zones to vote by mail that must be delivered to thousands of local election districts across the United States.

But the Pentagon has found that bringing military voting into the 21st century is not so simple.

The number of absentee military ballots applied for that ultimately get counted is consistently low. In the last federal election, only about 30 percent of overseas military ballots were tallied, according to data from the federal Election Assistance Commission, which monitors election problems, and the Pew Center on the States.

Change won't come in time for the November presidential election, when record numbers of voters are expected to decide between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama. For soldiers, the stakes couldn't be higher. The winner may well decide how long they stay in battle, and how soon they come home.

No one knows why some 70 percent of overseas military ballots weren't recorded in 2006. No one keeps centralized records on military ballots or voter turnout. But anecdotal evidence collected from local voting districts, which number more than 7,000, points to ballots that arrived late, ballots not properly filled out and ballots mailed to the wrong location - most of which get discarded. Then there are the ballots of troops who, for whatever reason, never mailed them back at all.

Contributing to the confusion are states and local election districts with competing and sometimes confounding rules governing overseas ballots. And the mail-in process can take up to 60 days from start to finish, even though many absentee ballots weren't available until this month.

Because she would like to see the Iraq war end, Army Capt. Holly Landes, a 29-year-old veterinarian from Augusta, Ga., wants her vote to count. "I do know that this war is taking a toll on the country, and I would be happy to see it shortened," she said at Camp Speicher, a military installation near Tikrit in northern Iraq where she cares for bomb- and drug-sniffing dogs.

But Capt. Landes, an athletic soldier who wore camouflage and a handgun strapped to her thigh as she negotiated a spitting sandstorm, wasn't sure her first-time vote from abroad would arrive in her home county on time, based on complaints from fellow soldiers. "Some of them have expressed concerns that they haven't gotten the ballots until the day before elections," the captain said.

Voting in this election is particularly important, she said, "because it's a difference between staying in and pulling out ... So it would be nice if it were a little easier and they had more confidence in the system."

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