The Pentagon is blocking websites that help overseas military personnel cast absentee ballots in the upcoming Federal election. The Verified Voter Foundation has initiated a program to create a distributed mirror of absentee voting info and to provide anonymizing proxy services to defeat the military's unconstitutional censorware.
The International Herald Tribune reported on September 20th that "the Pentagon has begun restricting international access to the official Web site intended to help overseas absentee voters cast ballots." Pentagon spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Ellen Krenke confirmed that a number of Internet service providers worldwide had been blacklisted "to thwart hackers." Such measures are generally recognized to be ineffective against hackers while blocking legitimate users.
Apparently, the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) website is now blocked to civilians overseas trying to find out how to obtain absentee ballots in at least 25 countries–including Japan, France, Great Britain, and Spain–although military personnel overseas have other mechanisms for requesting absentee ballots.
