Absentee ballots?

Question

After hearing 'war stories' from soldiers/sailors who served in the Middle East about their absentee ballots, I would like to know if the military summarily looks at the ballots before submitting them to the local electorate? Remember the whole Florida fiasco in 2000 when a great deal of military absentee ballots were discarded, possibly affecting the outcome of the election.

Answer 1

The "military" can't look at anyone's ballot, either before or after they vote it. To do so would constitute mail fraud and there would be severe consequences. No APO/FPO Postmaster would be willing to risk his or her career over that! Additionally, each absentee ballot should have a secrecy sleeve that, if used, makes it impossible to see how someone voted through the envelope.

I can assure you the military ballots here in Florida (allowed to be received up to 10 days after the 2000 election) were not "discarded." They may have been declared ineligible for any of a variety of reasons, but they were never "thrown out."

Florida elections officials were sued by the Democrats to keep us from counting these "illegal" ballots. We were also sued by the Republicans to make us count those same ballots. At issue, was the postmark on the ballots received (as allowed by a Department of Justice Consent Decree) in the 10 days following the November 7th election. The lawsuits were only brought in jurisdictions (like mine) where we have a high concentration of military voters (who, as most know, usually lean toward being Republicans).

The decision made in our judicial circuit allowed us to count some of the ballots without postmarks (if it could reasonably be assumed based on the day we got them they had obviously been mailed before election day), but not all of them. The Department of Defense insisted that "all APO's are required to postmark all mail." Boy were they surprised to see how many ballots didn't have a postmark!

To remedy this, as part of the Florida Election Reform Act of 2001, we added a "date" line next to the signature line, and our law now requires that the written date on that line be used to determine eligibility, not a postmark, which a mail piece may or may not get.

Contrary to what some will tell you, we are in the business of doing what we can to count votes, not coming up with new and inventive reasons to not count them.

As anyone in my profession will tell you, we don't care who wins, as long as they win by a large margin!

Answer 2

What are you asking? If you are asking if there is ever any election fraud perpetrated, the answer is yes. I remember reading about some fraud in Chicago during the Kennedy election that there were a number of people who voted, but there was a little problem, a lot of the people who voted were dead and buried.

Also, in the 2000 fiasco, there was a Democrat caught with a voting machine in his trunk.

Throwing away a bunch of military absentee ballots, hey, accidents happen. Just because military personnel tend to vote conservative is no reason to suspect that Democrats lose those votes on purpose does it?

All that stuff is mild compared to what they will be willing to try to get away with in 2008.

Answer 3

The answers above are pure neocon propaganda.You are correct, the Republicans had thousands of military absentee ballotts thrown out because they did not have postal cancellations from a post office. They were handled by military mail (not postmarked in a foreign country). And yes, they were screened first and were strongly for Gore. Part of the stinking theft of the 2000 "election".

About time for the neocon point-gamers to flood in with thumds at the ready.

Answer 4

I don't understand your question. Why would the military look at somebody's ballot? During the 2000 election, the absentee ballots that were sent in from overseas and on ships out in the middle of the ocean were not post-marked 'correctly'--I can't remember if it was because the post-mark was from a foreign country or if it was because the post-mark was not from Florida, but it was a weasly thing to do to toss out their ballots because of a post-mark they couldn't control. I think they ended up counting those, because it was clearly a statutory mistake to not allow them, and I think they cited another law that superceded the post-mark rule or something..

Answer 5

The absentee ballots were not discarded. The Democrats went to the courts to get them discounted. The military votes heavy heavy heavy republican.
USAF Veteran