Military Votes Count. Right?

Uh...hmmm...not according to this story at the Army Times.

Official: Absentee votes may go uncounted - again

Thousands of votes from U.S. troops overseas could go uncounted again in November without emergency legislation extending deadlines for the ballots, a Chicago election official warned President Bush in a letter Tuesday. Nearly 30 percent of military voters who requested ballots in 2000 didn't get them in time to vote.

Theresa M. Petrone, a Democratic member of Chicago's three-person Board of Election Commissioners, told Bush the problem could be solved if he proposed emergency legislation giving election officials up to 14 days after Election Day to collect and count ballots.

White House spokesman Ken Lisaius declined to comment, saying he hadn't seen the letter. Congressional leaders have opposed amending the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and such emergency legislation is unlikely before November.

The handling of military ballots was a major issue in the ballot recount in Florida in 2000 that led to Bush's victory, when election officials rejected hundreds of military absentee ballots, many because they lacked postmarks or signatures.

Mike, who sent us this, says, "What's really sick is those guys are forced to put their life on the line and don't even get a say so." There's a lot that's sick about all this, Mike.