True or False: the PENTAGON will be counting military absentee ballots?

[npincus]

What is the story here? Greg Palast spoke briefly about it on C-Span just now.

If true, this is an absolute SHAM(E) and a disgrace, to boot. This must be stopped- are any investigative journalists on this? Does anyone know what is going on re: the tally of military absentee ballots?

[Longhorn]

1. My son mailed his ballot to our county election office.

He's a Marine stationed in Japan.

[AntiCoup2K4]

2. That would go beyond "shame" and "disgrace" into CRIME and FRAUD.

Despite the RW mock outrage over them in the Florida debacle, there really is no such thing as a "military absentee ballot". They are ordinary absentee ballots which happen to be sent to people in the military. The majority of whom are still registered to vote in their hometowns, so that is where the ballot is legally counted. Not in Baghdad, not at the base, not at the Pentagon. So if they are intercepted by the Pentagon, that's nothing short of criminal manipulation. Palast is usually dead on with his writing, but this can't be right. They would never get away with that shit.

[ProfessorPlum]

3. I have read that those ballots will be collected and sent to the

Pentagon first, though, this year. This is a new thing, and very sinister sounding. Then, they will be sent to the appropriate balloting places, I assume. But who knows what will happen to them while the Pentagon has a hold of them?

Will keep my eye out for a link to that.

[LynnTheDem]

4. True.

MSNBC - Pentagon offers troops a new way to vote

A soldier fills out an absentee ballot, scans it into a computer, and e-mails it to the Pentagon. It's then faxed to the voter's local election office.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6030168/

[LynnTheDem]

5. US military lose right to vote in secret

An Internet voting plan was canceled, and a high-tech voting system the Pentagon is trying for the first time has been criticized by computer experts who say it could be tampered with and by voting-rights advocates who say it requires soldiers and Marines to forgo their right to vote in secret.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63198-2004Sep30.html

[LynnTheDem]

6. Right to vote vs. right to secrecy

In addition, voting-rights advocates and other political experts said because the system required that ballots be identified by the voters' names for validation purposes, and because they were handled by others several steps along the way, that people serving in the military would lose the right to a secret ballot.

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/politics/9600636.htm?1c

[LynnTheDem]

7. E-vote contractor ties to the RNC (surprise)

According to this new plan, members of the military will be allowed to vote by faxing or e-mailing their ballots, after waiving their right to a secret ballot. What is even more troublesome is the fact that the sending of this open ballot would go through a private contractor, whose chief executive officer has ties to the Republican National Congressional Committee.

Moreover, Patricia Williams, the chief executive of Omega Technologies, has refused to say which of her staff would handle the military votes and whether they are being allowed to engage in partisan politics.

The Pentagon has stood by Omega’s stonewalling and has insisted that there will be no fraud attached to these not-so-secret ballots.

http://www.ucc.org/justice/witness/wfj092704.htm