Military absentee voting...

[mk4]

just heard on the news that Virginia military absentee ballot requests are down 92% from 4 years ago?!! lots of reasons for why, maybe. for those of you with sisters and brothers in arms, who might not have requested their ballot and think it may be too late, please send them to: http://www.heroesvote.org/ as the news story said it *wasn't* too late.

[FiremanBob]

And if your right to vote is being suppressed, please get your story out to the TV and radio media asap.

[VACoastie]

I actually e-mailed my absentee ballot form off to the courthouse last week. Look forward to getting the real ballot in so I can send off my vote. Course... I only hope it actually gets there - 4 years ago we (military) had issues where our ballots WEREN'T counted for. This could be the underlying issue for this years debacle. From the shipmates I've talked to many of them have signed up already during a base-wide "voting ballot" thing 2 weeks ago. I don't trust my form being lost or not counted among the mass of 500 regristration forms going to one place so I did it individually since I know the ladies that work in the courthouse personally.

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[VBshooter]

This bears looking into much deeper....A theory is the military may not support Obama due to his cuts in military health care money, so I don;t put it past the Dems to arrange for the new law not to be enforced regarding their ballots to save Ol Big Ears the votes going to Romney...

[grumpyMSG]

There is one other explanation that no one has mentioned yet. Right at the moment VA has no National Guard units deployed. It's the first time in ten years.

[FiremanBob]

This bears looking into much deeper....A theory is the military may not support Obama due to his cuts in military health care money, so I don;t put it past the Dems to arrange for the new law not to be enforced regarding their ballots to save Ol Big Ears the votes going to Romney...

It's not just a theory, and health care money is not the only reason. Obama has demonstrated his contempt for our military in myriad ways since he stole his Senate seat in 2006.

[FunnyBones]

I live in the Virginia Beach/Norfolk area and speak with military people every day. They are sick and tired of being used as pawns in the various social engineering schemes that come down from the pentagon. They are also burn't out from being over deployed. Many of them would leave the military if there were any jobs out there, but instead, they sit tight hoping they do not have to deploy again for the 4th time in 5 years. A great example is my son in law. He is a Navy CPO who just got home after a year in Kuwait, and the ship he is transfering to is leaving for a 10 month deployment very soon. He said he didnt give a rats ass about voting and lot of the young kids under him could care less either. Moral is pretty low among alot of military people and the pentagon will not address any real problems.

11 years of war with incompetent leaders got us where we are with military voting. I do not blame these young people one bit.

[FiremanBob]

While I don't blame these young service members, their attitude of "checking out" shows that they need education. Low morale and apathy in the troops are exactly what Obama wants. They need to understand that you can't vote against Obama - to change the Pentagon culture that is screwing them, they have to vote for Romney.

The choice is clear: They can vote for a President who will respect and support them, or they can fail to vote and get four more years of a "President" who despises them.

Military morale was very poor during the Carter years. As Reagan demonstrated, good leadership has amazing power to improve things.

I hope you will talk to your SIL and his friends.

[dorminWS]

Fox News ran an article about that very thing this morning. Seems that it just might be that in the name of saving money, information on voting is being omitted from the information package distributed to personnel when they are assigned to a new base. - At least that was what one talking head opined. If that is true, it is ironic in the extreme that our government or any part of it should conspire to disenfranchise those who have paid the highest price for the right to vote. Somebody ought to go to jail.

[VACoastie]

I've never seen one at my base, but like I said, many of us here in Puerto Rico went to am absentee ballot registration thing held on base. I just did mine on my own accord. Many other bases do the same - when I was in Hampton Roads in Portsmouth they did the same for out of towners.

The problem is (least for the Coasties and my Rating) is if you work on Nov. 5th, good luck getting someone to change your watch, or trade watches... People want to be out there and what not OR don't want to deal with craziness on the water that ensues.

The work hours are crappy and some people literally just can't get out there for it. That might be me in another 4 yrs, stuck on a boat somewhere, underway, not able to have gotten my ballot to vote in on time or even register at all.

Then again, some of the boys in the sandbox... You think their worries are of Obama vs. Romney? Hell no. They're living day to day.

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