National Defense Committee: Military Absentee Voting 2004 Election

Military Absentee Voting:

* National Defense Committee Military Absentee Voting Executive Summary - 2004 Election

* National Defense Committee Military Absentee Voting Final Report - 2004 Election

* National Defense Committee Raw Data Local Election Officials Report - 2004 Election


http://www.nationaldefensecommittee.org/pages/absentee_voting.html


An LTTE...



We Need a Better Way for Soldiers to Vote


Wednesday, December 14, 2005; Page A28

A Defense Department survey on military voting found that 79 percent of military personnel tried to vote in the 2004 presidential election and that 73 percent of those actually voted .

But the survey obscured an important fact: Disenfranchisement of military and overseas absentee voters remains high. Between 30 and 45 percent of these potential voters failed to receive their absentee ballots or received them too late to matter, according to surveys by the National Defense Committee and the Overseas Vote Foundation.

snip

It is troubling that the Pentagon office charged with administering the absentee voting program also is the one assessing its effectiveness. Clearly, the process needs to be updated with better technology and systems. But the people with the responsibility for undertaking this mission don't see the problem or want to cover it up. This will not lead to a solution.

snip

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301729.html



And a sortof rebuttal:


EarlyVoting Blog

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Continued problems with military absentee balloting

snip

The figures reported by the National Defense Committee (here) differ (they report a 24% "disenfranchisement rate"). Still, anything over a few percentage points would be a point of concern.

There is a problem, however. The numbers in the NDC report are based on the number of absentee ballot request vs. the number actually returned. They do report on the percentage rejected because they arrived too late or had some problems with the address.

But do we know anything about what percentage of absentee ballots were not returned because the individual simply chose to abstain? Obviously, it would be foolish to assume 100% absentee return rate from military personnel.

Perhaps we could compare absentee request and return rates from other jurisdictions. One of the best reporting jurrisdiction is Johnson County, Iowa. In this county, more than 94% of ballots requested in 2004 were returned. These figures are dramatically higher than the military return rate, lending some credence to the NDC report.

snip

http://earlyvote.blogspot.com/2005/12/continued-problems-with-military.html

:shrug:

:rofl:

As someone who actually read the first contract reqs for the military voting, they were too ambitious with their goals. The problem was that the winning vendor had to be on an approved contract vehicle list. This meant that the main contractors were going to be non voting machine companies. Now normally this is not a bad thing. The problem is that these were defense contractors which are a rung lower on the slime ladder. The winner was partnered with a a vendor who had no clue about the issues facing military voters.
By 2006, there were supposed to be roll outs of this grand voting scheme to let military and their family vote in such a way that their votes are counted.

Awarding a vendor to supply equipment and train sworn officers might be an idea?

is that the men will follow what their commanders want them to do. Even if not overt, if a commander is a known republican, the lower ranks may follow blindly. This is just the nature of the military. There are election officers that are in charge. The problem is getting the info to the troops anyway. How is a soldier in Iraq that has been there for 13 months to know who to vote for in their mayoral election?

Unbelievable!