Americans vote in Afghanistan

[babylonsister]

Americans vote in Afghanistan
By Jason Straziuso, The Associated Press
European edition, Saturday, October 18, 2008


KABUL, Afghanistan — American soldiers, aid workers and military contractors in Afghanistan are filling out absentee ballots this week and sending them back to the U.S. to be counted by election officials.

U.S. soldiers and citizens in Afghanistan — which has no reliable mail service — face difficulties making sure their votes get counted.

But the U.S. military has made a big push this year to help soldiers request ballots, advertising the process with TV commercials, posters and ballot drives outside dining halls and recreations centers.

The top U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, said he thinks this year’s effort was "the most significant drive probably in our nation’s history" to make sure deployed soldiers can vote.

"I’ve been around for 32 years and been overseas more times than I can count, and it used to be near impossible for me or my spouse to vote," Schloesser said. "We’ve come a heck of a long ways and we’ve devoted a lot of resources so U.S. military personnel can vote this year."

Defense Department figures would seem to support that: From Sept. 8 to Oct. 14, 145,087 ballots were sent to voters overseas, according to Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Les’ Melnyk.

more...

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=58224

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. Somebody must be worried.

The military is not, despite what some would believe, a monolithic R-wing enclave that will always vote Republican, but it is a generally conservative milieu which probably (tho I can't say for sure, as my involvement with the military ended 35 years ago) breaks 60/40 for the republicans.

Back in my time the general attitude was the military didn't do politics - and I don't remember seeing any registration drives, and only perfunctory encouragement for voting.

But as I said, that was in the dark ages.

[alsame]

2. How are these ballots handled, what is the chain of custody? Are

they sent back to the US or counted overseas? Anyone know?