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PHOTO/DEFENSEIMAGERY.MIL/SSGT. WILLIAM GREESON
Under fire — U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman Clark Long, left, with 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment (the corpsman with sunglasses on his head), treats a wounded Afghan National Police officer at Patrol Base Jaker in the Nawa district of Helmand province in Afghanistan. The photo was taken Aug. 5. The officer was hit with shrapnel when an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated near him. Marines with 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, Regimental Combat Team 3, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade Afghanistan, are deployed in support of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force and will participate in counterinsurgency operations and training and mentoring of Afghan security forces.
By Jen Horton
posted Oct 25, 2009 - 12:59:19pm
Clark Long missed voting in his first presidential election because he was training as a medic. Now, because he’s stationed in a remote part of the world, he may miss his second election.
And this time, his father is on the ballot.
Long is a Navy medic attached to the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade. His father, Lewis Long, is running for the Zone 1 seat on the Lake Helen City Commission, hoping to oust incumbent Ann Robbins. The election is Nov. 3.
“This is a shame,” Lewis Long said. “He wants to vote for his dad, and he may not get to.”
Caryn Long, Clark’s mother, said the family has done everything they can to get a ballot to their son.
“We did sign up for the e-mail option,” she said. “But then he couldn’t get e-mail. He hasn’t been able to respond.”
Clark Long is in Nawa, Afghanistan. Conditions are very basic, with no Internet access, limited telephone access and extremely long mail delays.
“In August, I did get one letter,” Caryn Long said. “It was from June.”
A letter, or in this case, a ballot, takes about seven weeks to make it from Lake Helen to Afghanistan. But because there are no building numbers, sometimes the mail never makes it at all.
“In April, we got a letter we sent in October as addressee unknown,” Caryn Long said. “He’s due to come home the first week of December. He said I might as well not send any more mail.”
Both Caryn and Lewis Long made their careers in the military. Each served 21 years in the U.S. Air Force. Lewis Long said he was able to vote no matter where he was in the world, even when stationed just miles from the North Pole.
“The mail delivery was reasonable,” he said.
He’s upset his son doesn’t have a voice as a voter while he serves his country.
In mid-October 2008, the Longs requested an absentee ballot be sent to their son for the presidential election. Clark was training then at Camp Lejeune, N.C., with the U.S. Marines.
Marines do not have their own medics, so Navy medics are attached to Marine Corps unit.
Because Clark’s ballot hadn’t gotten to him by Oct. 30, 2008, his parents went to the Volusia County Department of Elections and had a ballot overnighted. It cost them $48.
When the Longs ordered the FedEx delivery, they didn’t have a building number for Clark, just a box number. FedEx didn’t deliver the ballot because they couldn’t identify the building.
The ballot made it to the adjutant’s office Nov. 3, the Monday before the election. Clark was in the field and did not receive it until late that evening, far too late to mail it back to Volusia County.
His first opportunity to cast a vote for president was lost.
Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, president and CEO of the Overseas Vote Foundation, read The Beacon’s story about the Longs’ struggle in 2008.
“I glanced at that article, and it makes me nothing short of furious,” she said. “That sailor could have accessed a write-in ballot online, on paper, by post, or from his Voting Assistance Officer ... many times over. What incompetence!”
Each unit in the military has a voting-assistance officer.
The Overseas Vote Foundation conducted a post-election survey of 24,000 overseas voters. Of those who wanted to vote and couldn’t, 52 percent said the problem was late-arriving ballots.
Two out of every five military voters received their ballots during the second half of October, or later, which was too late to guarantee return in a timely manner.
The problem had worsened since 2006, when one out of four military voters received late ballots.
Volusia County Department of Elections spokeswoman Lisa Lewis said a paper ballot was mailed to Clark Long the week of Oct. 5, and she also sent him a ballot via e-mail Sept. 30.
“If the mail doesn’t get there and there’s no e-mail, I’m not sure what else we can do,” Lewis said. “I wish that wasn’t the case.
For more information about the Overseas Vote Foundation, visit www.overseasvotefoundation.org.
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Emphasis on....."know so much that ISN'T so" !!!!!!
Do you not get it ?????
Truth...I gave the fool facts and the you decide to give the lame rebuttal ?
Can you name the city employees who LIVE within city limits??
Give me your facts or truth on the issue.
As for rude....better to have an army of donkeys led by a lion, than an army of lions led by a donkey !
On Tuesday what will you all do? Hope since you are so unhappy you move back under the rock you emerged from !
Nah, he is so far out of it it is pathetic.
Once again, given some facts and challenged, he runs off.
His Mother must be ashamed of having bore something with such a distant sense of reality.
Prayers don't make fallacy truth ! You are delusional.
You say 12 own property....let's hope you weren't stupid enough to be counting elected reps.
I'll bet you can't name 6 that own any property within city limits !
What a clown you are.
Hopefully this whole debate will be finalized next Tuesday !
Clarino/yes, Wilson/yes, Mullen/yes, Straley/yes.
You people are pathetic. Looks like quite a few "jammy bloggers".
So much for small town life. Politics seem to ruin even the best of people.
I'm a bit perplexed why you haven't called our local Code Enforcement? Oh, that's right he is busy with Animal Control. LOL!!!!!
Noise, you can blame Mayor Duffy for no wall. She was the one that promised that. Listen to the minutes!!!!
GO LEWIS. WE ARE VOTING FOR YOU! LH needs to eradicate the scourge of Robbins.
You must be so proud of Clark.
The real shame here is the feigned outrage from OVF over the issue. Their main concern is making sure military and overseas civilians have access to registration and requests for ballots--something Mr. Lewis did not have a problem with. Ask OVF why they haven't supported voting initiatives with the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) for increased use of internet voting. Instead they keep draining monies for better access to registration and ballot requests.
Honestly, it must be her fault right ?
Honestly, it must be her fault right ?
Do you people have to twist every article ever written about Lake Helen ?
Oh, I forgot....It's Fox News's fault !
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