Overseas Fraud

From dKosopedia

Category: 2004 elections

Ballots Mailed After Cutoff Date

Sept. 29 NYTimes: Overseas ballot troubles

Phili.com October 3, 2004

Four years after overseas voting became a battleground in the presidential election in Florida, millions of civilians and soldiers living abroad still face a bewildering and unwieldy system of absentee balloting that could prevent their votes from being counted.

Election officials concede that tens of thousands of Americans overseas might not get their ballots in time to vote. Late primaries and legal wrangling caused local election offices in several battleground states to fail to mail out their absentee ballots by Sept. 20, a cutoff date that officials say is necessary to ensure everyone can return them on time, a survey by the New York Times shows. In Florida in 2000, late-arriving ballots became a divisive issue when some were counted and others were disqualified.

The tardy ballots are just one of several setbacks to affect the ability of the estimated 4.4 million eligible voters overseas to participate. Some have been unable to send in their registrations to a Pentagon contractor's computers clogged by thousands of voter forms. Others were denied access to a Web site designed to help Americans abroad vote. And many simply failed to navigate the complicated rules and methods that determine how and when to register and vote and that vary state by state.

"I found it so convoluted I gave up," says Alex Campos, a management consultant in London, of the Pentagon's registration program.

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Related article

Overseas Registration Web Temporary Shutdown Near Deadlines

Pentagon restricts overseas access to voter registration site

9/21/2004 By John Leicester, Associated Press

PARIS — Americans abroad, whose votes could be crucial if the Nov. 2 presidential election proves close, are being denied access to a U.S. Department of Defense Web site designed to make it easier for them to cast absentee ballots.

The problem concerns blocks placed on access to the Web site of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, a Defense Department division to help expatriate American voters, including servicemen and women. The site's address is www.fvap.gov. ...

{Last I heard about this, access had been restored to most, but not all locations abroad.}

Voter Registration Fraud Clearinghouse