GraniteGrok

Letting Our Military Vote - what a concept!  But the Democrats are against the idea of making it easier for those brave folks, defending us on the battlefield, to simply vote. Sue Peterson of the Blue Star / Gold Star Moms organization brought this issue to our attention (H/T to her!) and the 'Grok brought it up to Jeb during one of our times with us.

Sometimes, you only have to ask - and we did!  Thus, the 'Grok is happy to announce that Jeb is recognizing this as a real problem and is making it part of his campaign issues to us, his voters here in US Congressional District 1 here in NH. Here's what he wrote (emphasis is mine):

Lost in the partisan dispute and inaction about energy legislation in Congress over the last month, is another issue that the Democratic leadership in the House apparently does not want to allow a vote on.

Congressman Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Republican whip in the House, introduced legislation in early July that would provide men and women serving in the military overseas better opportunities to vote in the fall elections. The Federal Election Commission has estimated that less than 6% of military serving overseas voted in the 2006 mid-term elections, because many ballots simply weren’t counted due to various bureaucratic jumbles.  One estimate is that of those absentee ballots sent out, less than a third were actually counted This has been a well known problem for some time but the Pentagon has engaged in foot dragging for some time.

Blunt’s legislation co-sponsored by 15 other members of the House, all Republican, would have demanded that the Pentagon do a better job of providing members of the military the opportunity to vote.  It is bitterly ironic that our soldiers who are serving our nation to protect the sacred right to vote are being denied that opportunity through bureaucratic inertia.

Now the problem is Congressional inertia. The House recently adjourned for 5 weeks without even considering Blunt’s legislation.  The vote to adjourn was 213-212 with Carol Shea Porter casting the deciding vote.

Not only did the House specifically avoid considering any legislation to lower gas and heating oil prices, it failed to even consider the legislation to enable soldiers voting. While evading its responsibilities on energy, one would think the House could find the time and the will to address what should be a bi-partisan issue that 100% of Americans would support: helping soldiers overseas vote. 

No Vote. Not even a hearing.

The House did vote on legislation to prohibit the sale of wild horses and monkeys, honoring the International Year of Sanitation, and creating a native Hawaiian tribe. Perhaps these are important --- but are they more important than lowering the cost of energy or providing better voting opportunities for soldiers defending our liberties abroad?

It is increasingly apparent that our representatives in Congress have no clue about what's really important to Americans. Not fixing the deplorable overseas soldier voting issue before taking a long vacation is a disgrace.  Tell Shea-Porter to clean up this mess if you see her this August. Of course you probably won’t see her…..she is on vacation.