The military, voting, and Election 2004 - take a guess where the votes went.

[babylonsister]

This makes me wonder how the vote honestly went, but I don't think there was any honesty to be had for soldiers who put their lives on the line. This is the first story I've ever heard about how the 2004 vote went. If someone has any solid figures or stories at all, I'd love to hear them.


The military, voting, and Election 2004
DUer beachmom posted this earlier:


During my research, I found this mil blog and this post:

http://myamericaniraqlife.blogspot.com/2006/12/2004-election.html


It was right around election time…Bush vs. Kerry, any kid in the Army with some sense wanted Kerry to win even if they didn’t like him. Everyone in my unit was given an absentee ballot and told to vote. My friends and I all voted for Kerry. I personally didn’t care for him but who was I going to vote for? Some asshole who takes 10 minutes to spit out a sentence and wanted to send me to war? No thank you. We held onto our ballots for about a week or so. We thought the higher ups would collect them and mail them out as a unit. We were wrong. After training one night, we were all watching Black Hawk Down and one of our Sergeant Majors came in and asked, “Did you mail in your ballots? Did you vote?”. A bunch of us sat there confused…some of us even had the ballots in our pockets…but we were too late. The Sergeant Major told us they had to be in the mail that afternoon. Do you know what that’s like? The whole time I was thinking…this ballot is my ticket out of war…Kerry just needs to win…maybe we won’t get sent over or if we do maybe we’ll leave early. But no…I was late…a lot of us were. Our hope was thrown out the window. We ripped up the ballots and prayed America would be smart enough not to reelect Bush. I guess they weren’t.


Is this just one small anecdote or prevelant in the military, to disenfranchise people more likely to vote Dem?

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. By the way your link is dead

apart of that, yep you are onto something

[babylonsister]

3. Thank you, link fixed (I think/hope)! nt

[illinoisprogressive]

2. It could have been an anecdote. Even the higher ups hate the war and

shrub. They know he destroyed the best military in the world and they were the ones who built it up. They know it was shrub who kept them from getting bin laden and sent them on a foolish war.
I do believe the majority of the military hate Bush. But, they are trained not to show it or say it.

[w4rma]

4. The higher up you go the more likely that the "higher up" will be a Bush loyalist. (nt)

[babylonsister]

5. The point is, the military vote WAS NOT COUNTED, at least in this

instance. If hardly any were, what does that say about Americans, ESPECIALLY soldiers, and their right to vote?

[sanskritwarrior]

7. I voted on post

I'm pretty sure my vote was counted. Or are you just talking about peeps overseas??

[babylonsister]

8. I hope you'd click on the link and read what did or didn't happen,

from someone who was there.

[MH1]

11. Sounds like this is referring to overseas vote. n/t

[babylonsister]

9. The point is, we never had a clue how they voted. And that's criminal. nt

[sanskritwarrior]

6. I voted Dem in 2004

but most of the soldiers in my platoon were sporting Bush/Cheeny stickers and so forth......I think that in 2004 it was 60-70% Republican and 30-40% Dem. Nowadays I think 50-50 or 55% Dem 45% Republican. I still know quite a few enlisted that support Bush, not as many as used to, so that means progress is being made....... :D

[babylonsister]

10. Thanks, Beachmom. nt

[Karenina]

12. The military and ex-pat votes

were immediately flushed down the toilet the moment after the registration data was entered into the database.