ABSENTEE VOTING PROBLEMS FOR OUR TROOPS IS THE BIGGEST CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE IN AMERICA TODAY
http://bigpeace.com/pschweizer/2011/02/17/soldiers-fight-and-die-for-us-and-they-expect-to-vote/
PETER SCHWEIZER
Absentee voting problems for our troops is the biggest civil rights issue in America today. Politicians in Washington who were so hell-bent on pushing through “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in the name of civil rights don’t seem quite as motivated to make sure that your men and women in warm’s way get to vote. In 2008 half of our oversees troops reported problems in voting. In 2010 that number was still an alarmingly highly 1/3. Can you imagine if any other group in America faced those challenges? There would be complete and total outrage. Troops having trouble voting? Ho-hum. Congressional hearings are now underway on the subject. So what are they going to do about it? A report:
WASHINGTON — About one-third of overseas troops who wanted to vote in 2010 couldn’t, according to testimony at a House hearing Tuesday.
For tens of thousands of other overseas service members, absentee voting improved, thanks to a 2009 law requiring that absentee ballots be mailed 45 days before an election, Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Justice Department, told the House Administration Committee.
But more than a dozen states and territories had trouble mailing absentee ballots to service members after holding late primaries.
Overseas troops who said they never voted in last year’s election cited difficulties receiving or returning their absentee ballots, according to a review by the Overseas Vote Foundation. The problem was worse in 2008, when about half of overseas troops reported problems, according to the panel’s chairman, Rep. Daniel Lungren, R-Calif.
‘It is not good enough,’ Lungren said. ‘We must do better.’”
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