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September 8, 2012

Once Again The Democrats Will Not Allow Our Troops To Vote


Six Republican Senators have demanded an explanation from SecDef Panetta regarding the Pentagon's failure to create voter assistance centers in every military base in a combat zone. Congressional staff report that most bases have either an inadequately staffed center or no center at all. This is contrary to a 2009 law requiring the military to provide assistance in getting soldiers a chance to vote.

From the Washington Guardian:
With another election lurking around the corner, the Pentagon is getting a bad review for its efforts to comply with a new law designed to make it easier for overseas military personnel to cast their ballots.

The Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act was passed by Congress in 2009 and signed into law by President Barack Obama and was supposed to make it easier for service people deployed overseas and U.S. citizens living abroad to cast ballots back in their home states.But the Pentagon’s inspector general, the military’s internal watchdog, reported Tuesday it got a disappointing result when it tried to locate such voting assistance offices on each installation earlier this year.

“Results were clear. Our attempts to contact IVAOs failed about 50 percent of the time,” the inspector general reported. “We concluded the Services had not established all the IVAOs as intended by the MOVE Act because, among other issues, the funding was not available.”
I call bullshit. I watched a report on Fox News this evening and a mannish appearing Pentagon spokeswoman stated that the reason for the low compliance was that the inspector general staff used old addresses and phone numbers.

These stinking liars can't get their own stories straight.

8 comments:

Anam Cara said...

All they have to do is send a tasker from TJAG to every JAG office in the world to do it and the local JAG office notifies the PA who will get it in local military papers, etc. It can also go down through the chain of command when the JAG informs the commanding officer at one of the Staff briefings of this tasking.

Woodsterman (Odie) said...

Mutiny !

Kid said...

The next non-dem administration better put up some hard to knock down rules about military voting. Why didn't the last one do so I wonder.

sig94 said...

Odie - I'd save that for when the orders come down to shoot patriotic American protestors.

sig94 said...

Kit - they never seem to run out of excuses.

Derfel Cadarn said...

Getting bad reviews?! This is dereliction of duty and heads should roll. All of the joint chiefs should be dismissed and forced to retire. If it can be proven the call came from higher up then Panetta should go also. The law is the law and if the military can't be expected to abide by it then the rest of us do need to either. The line must be drawn here. They are either men of honor or they are not and right now honor seems to be in short supply.

sig94 said...

Derfel - amen to that. We simply cannot expect our people to lay their lives on the line and be treated like second class citizens because of their political views.

Anam Cara said...

The biggest problem for troops is getting the absentee ballots from the locality where they are registered. If a state delays in sending them out, if the requirements say they must be back shortly after mailed from US, it is impossible because the troops don't have access to "Overnight" express mail. it just takes time from an APO to get mail to the states. All absentee ballots should be mailed a month to 6 weeks before an election to the voters to give them time to respond!