Word: balloting
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...with absentee applications, that people have been calling repeatedly and - get this - that the fax machine was broken. She told me to fax my application again, but to a different number. I went through the same motions for the third time, this time including a Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot (FWAB), a back-up ballot (which doesn't include candidates for the state level) used by people like me who aren't able to get their absentee ballots in time. I have never felt so angry, helpless and frustrated with the American voting system, and I had certainly never feared...
...Hong Kong-based musician who is registered to vote in California, was still waiting for his absentee ballot to arrive in the mail on Oct. 27. "It's really sort of unfathomable that we're still plotting through this medieval paper-based way of voting that is such a nightmare," says Kai. For swing state voters, this waiting game is more agonizing. "I ordered my absentee ballot from Colorado, a swing state, months ago, and never received it," says Kristen Allen, a reporter for The Local, an online daily news website in Berlin, Germany...
...Some states - like Wisconsin, North Carolina and Virginia - require another U.S. citizen to sign the ballot as a witness. That was a challenge for Catherine Thompson-Coffe, who lives on a farm in Vendoges, a remote area of France, where there are no other Americans. She called the U.S. Embassy, who sent her a FWAB. "I think it should be easier to vote," says Thompson-Coffe. A debate stirred in Virginia a few days ago when the Fairfax County registrar was not going to count dozens of military ballots that came from overseas because they were missing the address...
...Different problems have cropped up in other states. Los Angeles County, for instance, sent some sample ballots overseas early, before the real ballots were even printed. Mixed in the packet voters received was a line in red print that read, "Some early mailings may not receive Official Ballot Card. If this applies to you, mark choices on Official Sample Ballot pages." Yet Sandy Mansson of Stockholm, Sweden, found it odd. "It was very strange, it was just not what you normally do," says Mansson. Paul Drugan, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Board of Elections, defends the practice. "Our first...
...Other countries make it much easier for their citizens to vote from afar. In Sweden, Spain and Ireland, citizens can simply show up at their country's embassy or consulate on election day and vote. "A Swede abroad just goes to their consulate and gets their ballot, it's very simple and there isn't very much red tape to it," says Mansson. Why doesn't the United States do this? "The federal government provides that states administer the elections, and the states have the procedures and legislation in place to carry out election processes," explains Polli Brunelli, director...