August 13, 2004: Headlines: COS - Bulgaria: Elections: Absentee Ballots: Madison Capital: Four years ago, Peace Corps Volunteer Steve Elmore opened an envelope of documents in the crowded, smoke-filled teachers' lounge of a school in Balchik, a Bulgarian town on the Black Sea

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Bulgaria: Peace Corps Bulgaria: The Peace Corps in Bulgaria: August 13, 2004: Headlines: COS - Bulgaria: Elections: Absentee Ballots: Madison Capital: Four years ago, Peace Corps Volunteer Steve Elmore opened an envelope of documents in the crowded, smoke-filled teachers' lounge of a school in Balchik, a Bulgarian town on the Black Sea

By Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-239-147.balt.east.verizon.net - 151.196.239.147) on Friday, August 13, 2004 - 6:28 pm: Edit Post

Four years ago, Peace Corps Volunteer Steve Elmore opened an envelope of documents in the crowded, smoke-filled teachers' lounge of a school in Balchik, a Bulgarian town on the Black Sea

Four years ago, Peace Corps Volunteer Steve Elmore opened an envelope of documents in the crowded, smoke-filled teachers' lounge of a school in Balchik, a Bulgarian town on the Black Sea

Four years ago, Peace Corps Volunteer Steve Elmore opened an envelope of documents in the crowded, smoke-filled teachers' lounge of a school in Balchik, a Bulgarian town on the Black Sea

The Vote From Overseas
Officials Prepare To Receive Absentee Ballots
News from The Capital Times

Four years ago, Steve Elmore opened an envelope of documents in the crowded, smoke-filled teachers' lounge of a school in Balchik, a Bulgarian town on the Black Sea.

Surrounded by curious local colleagues, he began filling out his absentee ballot.

"I just started voting right there," said Elmore, who taught environmental education as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer from 1999 to 2000. "They were watching me do it. Being in a former communist country, it was a strange interaction -- as if it was public and private at the same time."

Wells Fargo

In this year's election, Elmore, who now works for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and leads Madison's organization of returned Peace Corps volunteers, plans to vote a little closer to home.

Meanwhile, election officials are preparing to gather absentee ballots from Wisconsin's nearly 7,600 Peace Corps volunteers and military personnel serving overseas.

With Wisconsin's electorate about evenly split -- Al Gore won the state by just 5,708 votes in 2000 -- absentee ballots could easily tip the scales in favor of either President Bush or Democratic nominee John Kerry.

Still, overseas voters are difficult to target because many are scattered in places beyond the reach of televised commercials or telephone calling campaigns, said Seth Boffeli, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

"I don't think there's a whole lot you can do. You just kind of have to hope that they're informed," Boffeli said, adding that for those in the military, their own personal situation often affects their votes more than any campaign influence.

Elmore said that election news was hard to come by in Bulgaria.

"Although I had access to the Internet, it was difficult because you didn't have the daily information about the candidates and what was going on with the race," Elmore said.

Despite the disconnect, government officials are encouraging overseas voters to send in absentee ballots early, hoping to avoid any of the confusion that cast doubts over the last presidential election.

For example, the National Association of Secretaries of State added a military and overseas voters' page to its Web site and plans to help the Department of Defense and U.S. Postal Service expedite the transfer of ballots from overseas personnel.

The Peace Corps has been working for eight months to help volunteers send ballots from the 71 countries where they now serve. Wisconsin's 278 volunteers, including 142 UW-Madison alumni, will receive newsletters and e-mail reminders to register to vote in their home states.

Instead of sending their ballots directly to their home districts, volunteers can submit their ballots to in-country Peace Corps offices, where regional staffers will collect and send them in together.

And after that, overseas voters can only hope their votes will count.

"I read somewhere during the whole process (in 2000) that absentee ballots were counted later, and there was some question whether they really influenced the race that much," Elmore said, recalling the prolonged attempts to settle the Bush-Gore dispute.

He also remembered watching the Internet for election results with a Bulgarian computer teacher, a colleague at Elmore's school in Balchik.




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Story Source: Madison Capital

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Bulgaria; Elections; Absentee Ballots

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