January 03, 2005
A disenfranchised serviceman
Reader Erik Kessler e-mails:
My brother, Joseph Owens, is stationed in Japan in the Navy. He has been on leave over the Holidays and I spoke to him this weekend and he told me a very discouraging story. He's a registered voter in the State of Washington. (Tacoma). Apparently, everyone he is stationed with from the state of Washington did NOT receive their ballots until after the election. Since the ballots were late, they were allowed to submit write-in provisional ballots for the presidential election (since this was the highest profile election, and they had to ignore the state election). He would've voted for Rossi, but never had the chance.
I haven't verified the details, but it sounds plausible. Erik says that Joseph also told his story to the Rossi campaign. If it checks out, we may well be hearing more about this.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 03, 2005
11:40 AM | Email This
1. OWENS, JOSEPH W
4122 N 35TH ST TACOMA, WA 98407-5521
Prev addr: USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Prev addr: USS DUBUQUE
Voter registration#: 0000211174
Voted 2001 Special Election
Voted 2000 General Election
2. In Snohomish County there were 21 "generic" military votes that were accepted in the election. My memory is it came in the initial count.
The ballots were lined pieces of paper with the offices of President, Sentate and Congress written in. There were lines below that but no offices designated such as Governor, Lt. Governor, Auditor. The canvas board accepted the 21 ballots. In some cases, a candidate name was written in the designated spot such as Bush-Cheney after President. If the serviceman/woman wrote in a party, Democrat or Republican, the vote was credited to that party's candidate in that race. The vote turned out to be 10 Republican, 10 Democrat, and 1 Green or Libertarian. Its my understanding none of them wrote in for other offices such as governor so no vote was credited in those races. I a reference in the above post to the USS Lincoln. The Lincoln is based in Everett which might be why 21 ballots came to Snohomish County.
I would be interested to know if Pierce County accepted the ballot of the serviceman referenced here.
3. Thanks for keeping the attention on this Shark. I added a reference to this post from my post here:
http://pullonsupermanscape.typepad.com/pull_on_supermans_cape/2004/12/wa_governors_ra_32.html
My post was linked to by Michelle Malkin and NRO's the Corner. Something over 10,000 people have read about Tyler Farmer over the weekend.
4. To who this may concern.
My brother was in the Navy for 21 years and Registered in King Co. Wa. His ballot never arived in time to vote and one year was postmarked 2 weeks after Nov 2. He filed complaints with all the right people to no avail.
21 years with out being able to vote when he retired he did not return the comunist co. he once called home. He moved to Montana and was finaly able to vote for the first time in 21 years. There is a way around the Demcoms of Washington state it's called move to another state that beleives in this Great Republic we call the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
5. The entire time I was in the USMC (93-97), whether stationed in Okinawa, Japan or Southern California, I never recieved a ballot until after the elections had occured. I was at the time of registered in Yakima County. So this story does indeed jive with my own personal experience.
6. In my current position, I get to work closely with the Military Postal System. Here in Korea, from the start of the election season, say mid-June or so we were informed that the Postal Service would place Elections materials in the front of mail trays to ensure that they were processed first and delivered in a timely manner. The also tracked the number that came in and were ultimately sent back out.
I voted in Pierce County for both the Primary and the General. I voted pretty much the same day or within a few days of receiving my ballot. For me, mail back to WA takes about 5-7 days as it must pass through San Francisco (same for Japan). Towards the end (within the last week of the election) returned ballots were being sent to the various election departments via FedEx or other overnight carrier to ensure that they made and were counted.
Now the folks the USPS has working at the San Francisco gateway for the Pacific sometimes do screw up. I was working an off-load of packages that came in on Christmas Eve, and we got a HUGE pallet (15,000 lbs) of packages in Korea that was supposed to go to Okinawa, oops wrong plane. Kind of makes you wonder...
I think this year in Korea we had a return rate of about 60% (60% of the election material sent was returned).
Again, this was only for Korea this year. Last time I was here (1998), I got my ballot the day of the election.
I fully support moving the Primary earlier to allow for the Military/Overseas ballots to be maid more than three weeks before the election.
7. Has King County offered any explanation for these late and missing ballots?
They must have a system in place that shows when these ballots were mailed out. That was one of the huge problems the county had a couple of years ago! (and a few KC employees lost their jobs over it) So - because there is a history of late ballot mailing in King County - they MUST have a way to verify when these military ballots were put in the mail to our service men and women.
8. While I am in no position to have much of a say in the matter of this so-called "election, I must say that when convicted felons are allowed to vote and the military is not, makes me ill.
I was in the Air Force for about 5 years and missed but 1 election. It was my own fault and don't blame the system, but this year seems to just bring out more of what I've been saying for the past 20 years or so and that is: "This state is going to hell in a hand basket.
Christine Gregoire says she now wants to unite our state? She's the biggest reason we're so divided. I just hope the truth prevails and justice is done. We need these types of politics stopped NOW. Or it will (hard as it seems) escalate.
J. Scott Biggs
Sultan, Wa.