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No Secret Ballot for Military Personnel?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the insecure-by-design dept.

belmolis writes "According to this editorial in today's New York Times, US military personnel for whom regular absentee ballot procedures are inconvenient are being provided with a questionable alternative, the Electronic Transmission Service, run by a private contractor, Omega Technologies. According to the NYT, the secrecy of ballots could be breached when they are faxed or emailed from the field, when they are in the hands of Omega Technologies, or when they are in the hands of local officials. The NYT was unable to obtain any information on security procedures from the company or from the Pentagon. A manual describing the system can be downloaded here [pdf document]. Like Diebold, Omega is far from non-partisan. Omega President and CEO Patricia Williams has donated $6,600 in this election cycle to the National Republican Congressional Committee and is a member of its Business Advisory Council."

4 of 402 comments (clear)

  1. Gain control over the military first by losttoy · · Score: 1, Troll

    First, identify who votes for Bush and who votes against him. Then eliminate the people against and put more people who are pro. Now you have control of the armed forces. Everything else falls in line after that easily.

    1. Re:Gain control over the military first by Barbarian · · Score: 1, Troll

      There's got to be some democrats in the general officer corp., you could get rid of them if their votes were not secret.

  2. Re:why voting anonymous anyway by timinkc · · Score: 0, Troll

    This is so sad... at least this time around bush and his supporters in the election process can see which ballots to loose or declare unreadable, or invalid. It should be alot more effective than there plan in 2000 (don't let the dark skin people vote).

  3. Re:What pissed off the military last time... by Attitude+Adjuster · · Score: 1, Troll
    Strange - you seem to have forgotten to mention the scandal of Republican operatives "fixing" incorrectly filled in absentee ballots (those for Bush, of course). Why is that? That, and the 60's-style deliberate disenfranchisement of African American voters, are the most fundamental fraud issues of the 2000 election.

    Here is a break down of just some of the absentee votes that were, but should not have been counted for Bush in Florida 2000... (Source: democrats.com)

    • Absentee ballots that could not be read by voting machines, but were illegally "duplicated" by county election officials: 10,000 (60% Bush?)
    • Absentee ballots cast in Seminole and Martin counties by Republican voters following the criminal alteration of defective ballot applications by Republican operatives: 5,000 (99% Bush)
    • Overseas military ballots that were not legal, but were counted because of massive pressure from the Bush campaign: 680 (71% Bush)
    This absentee ballot stuff wasn't a secret at the time - it was reported in real news (well, you wouldn't hear it from Fox or the Washington Times, but thats where sad wackos go to hide from reality) until mid 2001.

    Here is a CNN article on the Seminole county absentee ballot application form alterations. The Republican operatives were allowed to alter incorrectly filled-out/printed applications (by Reps), but Democrat operatives were not allowed to do the same to applications by Democrats.

    If your feeling rich you can purchase this July 2001 NYT article entitled "EXAMINING THE VOTE; How Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas Absentee Vote" by D Barstow and Don Van Natta.

    Then there is this nice and very recent example of (gasp) Republican cheating with absentee ballots in (gasp) Florida: A fine Greg Palast article.