Democratic Underground - 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.

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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

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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 jurisdictions 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.

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

Discussion:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x405369

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