Escambia County Receives Electronic Absentee Voting System Grant

November 16, 2011

Escambia County is among 13 Florida counties sharing a $1.6 million grant to enhance the absentee voting process for military and overseas citizens. The Electronic Absentee Systems for Elections grant was awarded by the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

Absent military voters and those living overseas can request, mark and track their absentee ballots electronically. The system will be designed to provide greater online access, automation of absentee requests and expedite ballot delivery making the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act voting process more seamless. Speeding up ballot delivery is expected to increase ballot request and return rates of military and overseas voters.

“We value the vital role our service personnel play in protecting our freedom. This grant provides an innovative way to enhance the elections process so more than 130,000 “military and overseas voters from Florida can more readily participate in future elections,” said David H. Stafford, Escambia County Supervisor of Elections.

Phase one, providing online access to ballots, is expected to roll out in time for the January 31, 2012, Presidential Preference Primary election. Democracy Live and Microsoft are the coalition’s partners in the innovative program.

Members of the Our Mission:Your Vote coalition include Baker, Bay, Bradford, Clay, Duval, Escambia, Leon, Nassau, Okaloosa, Pinellas, Putnam, Sarasota, and Wakulla Counties—serving nearly every major military installation in Florida. The Okaloosa County Supervisor of Elections will administer the grant.

Comments

8 Responses to “Escambia County Receives Electronic Absentee Voting System Grant”

  1. SW on November 19th, 2011 1:14 pm

    The Federal money I refer to is, indeed, taxpayer money (I, too, am a taxpayer; just for the record).

    Just because a trickle of money is given back by our generous leaders in Washington, DC, does not justify it being taken in the first place. It certainly does not justify it being spent on items not permitted by the US Constitution.

    I am not against a better way to vote; I am only against the continued spending of taxpayer money so freely by a government that has way overstepped its bounds and is continuing to act as if the money is theirs to do with as they please.

    And just because the money came from the DoD doesn’t make it any better; it is still taxpayer money.

  2. ArmyCptswife on November 17th, 2011 5:31 am

    Thanks William. :^)

  3. William on November 16th, 2011 7:46 pm

    >>>The funding came from the DOD and was allocated to them for this project. I posted a link, but it either went into Williams spam or was not allowed. Either way you can look this up. It’s a great thing for people like ourselves and I am very excited about it!!!!

    Sorry about that. A filter deleted the comment because it was 500+ words (limit is 300) with a cut and paste of the info.

    Here’s the link to the info:

    http://www.fvap.gov/global/news/nr32-2011.html

  4. ArmyCptswife on November 16th, 2011 7:31 pm

    The funding came from the DOD and was allocated to them for this project. I posted a link, but it either went into Williams spam or was not allowed. Either way you can look this up. It’s a great thing for people like ourselves and I am very excited about it!!!!

  5. Ifish4 on November 16th, 2011 6:57 pm

    SW, ever wonder where that “Federal Money” came from to start with. Well it came from taxpayers like me, so I really don’t have a problem with that “Federal Money” coming back home so to speak, since a good bit of it came from Florida to start with.

  6. SW on November 16th, 2011 2:11 pm

    Good point, 429SCJ.

  7. 429SCJ on November 16th, 2011 7:09 am

    SW, don’t get into a lather over that federal money. I suspect soon, it will be another one of those things we talk about, when we discuss days gone by.

  8. SW on November 16th, 2011 5:31 am

    STOP with the accepting federal money stuff!

    Why should someone in another state be forced to pay for stuff in FL? Why should people in FL be forced to pay for stuff in other states?

    Where is the Constitutional authority?