6 mil overseas votes can fax absentee ballots--23 states

Nice little bombshell from DoD now that they have eliminated witness requirements.

A voter can fax his/her ballot to the DoD in something like 60 countries (they publish the fax numbers too).

Then that information is gathered and emailed to a so-far unknown "contractor" who will then fax it to election officials.

Remember when they eliminated the plan to allow intenet voting because it wasn't secure? Seems to me this is in many ways worse.

First I've heard of this, although this has been going on in some states like Georgia already.

--------

Use Electronic Voting From Overseas As 'Last Resort,' Official Says
By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1, 2004 – Some overseas servicemembers have another way to vote in the upcoming Nov. 2 elections, but they should use it as a last resort, a senior Defense Department official said here today.

The alternative electronic voting method would apply only to troops whose local voting laws allow it, Charles Abell, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, noted during an interview with the Pentagon Channel and American Forces Press Service.

Servicemembers stationed overseas who want to vote in stateside elections, Abell pointed out, normally should still employ the traditional absentee paper ballots sent by mail.

The electronic transmission service, Abell explained, calls for servicemembers to first scan their marked paper ballot onto a computer primary data file. The file is attached to an e-mail message that's sent stateside to Pentagon contractors. The e-mailed ballot is printed out by the contractors and is then faxed to local voting officials for tallying.

....

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2004/n09012004_2004090106.html

The website for the program:

http://www.fvap.gov

The fax numbers:

http://www.fvap.gov/services/faxing.html

The state-by-state rules:

http://www.nass.org/Survey%20Military%20and%20Overseas%20Voters.pdf

Edit: LBN link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x794411

This is a ridiculous scheme that just reeks of fraud.

Get you to over 6.5 million

DoD and "contractor" will process votes for all of them.

Update: I've now read twice that it's 32 states will allow fax votes from this group. Legislation is pending in a few others to allow it.

Most civilian employees and "military contractors" abroad aren't American citizens. Most duty assignments are unaccompanied. At least a third of the active duty forces are stateside.

So we are abandoning election integrity for a phony appeal to patriotism.

Voting by fax. Our elected representatives have abandoned their oath to uphold the constitution. Our government is a bad joke.

http://www.fvap.gov/laws/uocavalaw.html

It's not just DoD. The pResident has designated the DoD responsible for overseas citizen absentee votes too. This is part of HAVA.

But yeah, it is be promoted, this fax voting, as a method for soldiers on the front lines. Actually they are a small part of it.

(Although the numbers don't seem right to me either--there are even more--something like 8 million civilians I thought).

1.4 million military
1.3 million military dependents of voting age.
1 million Federal civilian employees overseas
3.7 million overseas civilians, not affiliated with the Government

per August pdf on their program, located here:

http://www.defense.gov/news/Aug2004/040806-D-6570C-001.pdf

I hope the BBV peeple, hell everybody, takes note of this.

It may well be shenanigans with overseas absentee votes that is the 2004 vote theft plan.

Many of the states that take them via fax/email are swing states.

The ploy here will be the same as with Gore--you can't question military ballots or we will question your patriotism.

Yet the military (and unknown contractor) is now responsible for including all overseas citizens with it's ballots.

How easy to do fake, twice faxed ballots for certain jurisdictions where they know they won't check the integrity properly? Way easy.

How hard is it to track down and verify if even a sample of overseas citizens actually voted for who they are credited with voting for? Next to impossible.

This is a giant low-tech fiasco of a new vote theft waiting to happen, brought to you this time not by the Supremes, but by Rummy and Wolfy and the rest of your pals at DoD.

edit: clarity

I was looking at a number of 6.5 million votes earlier; here's what I found...

A medium sized state is roughly 3.5 to 4 million people.

So, the military/overseas vote is quite a bit larger than the little states, plus larger than medium/large states like Wisconsin, or Washington State, or TN or MO or MD or IN or Connecticut or CO or Arizona or Alabama. It is a little bigger than Massachusetts.

The 6.5 million overseas people would be #13 in the list of states, if they were a state.

Of course, if you happen to be a vote manipulator, it's more valuable to have 6.5 million votes that can be arranged or rearranged in any of the 50 states, than in just one state.

and names the contrator (Omega) but they miss the big picture, that it's not just soldiers.

Sharby's NYT ed. thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2308202

that allow ballots to be FAX'd. No wonder the Pentagon was so eager to do the right thing and get rid of the SERVE program. They knew they had a fall-back with this garbage. Now any military voter who is pissed at being held on active duty beyond their time, or who is pissed that they are still overseas after more than a year; has no chance to voice their opinion in the ballot box. Their vote has to go through some officer and then through a Repug front group before it ever goes to the states to be counted.

in fact it's criminal....where's Eliot Spitzer