There are more than 200,000 Americans living in Germany. In a tight election, their votes could make a difference. Spiegel-Online has a new English language service that reviews the daily headlines and has a blurb on the difficullties Americans have in Germany as they try to register in time for the US presidential election:
“Less than two weeks before the Nov. 2 presidential elections in the United States, US voter groups in Germany are reporting considerable voting problems. “Many Americans still haven’t received their absentee ballots,” said Elsa Rassbach of the independent group American Voices Abroad. The reason? Election offices in US states have been flooded with registration requests from Americans living abroad and have been unable to keep up with demand. That’s creating considerable problems given that most states required absentee voters to mail their ballots by Wednesday.”
In a follow-up article today, Spiegel reports on the difficulties Americans abroad have in trying to register via the official US Web site. Since the site is under control of the US Department of Defense, there has been much discussion of a republican conspiracy to block potential democratic voters:
Tatsache ist, dass die Internet-Blockade erst beendet wurde, als sich amerikanische Kongressabgeordnete einschalteten. Da aber waren die Verzögerungen bereits so erheblich, dass viele Stimmen zu spät in den Vereinigten Staaten eintreffen werden. Erst seit vergangener Woche können sich Wahlwillige Not-Wahlzettel aus dem Internet herunterladen. Das aber auch nur, wenn sie schon als Wähler registriert sind.
The 70,000 US military members in Germany, on the other hand, have an easy time in completing their voter registration. It turns out that 71% of them favor Bush. Hmmm….
Coverage of the US election campaign has reached a fever pitch in Germany, and bloggers are very much in evidence. Alexander Svensson has a good overview of the blogs and their technical pros and cons in his blog Wortfeld. Besides the campaign blog at Tagesschau that we have noted in previous posts, Svensson mentions Wolfgang Harrer, who blogs the campaign for Deutsche Welle and Michael Backfisch, whose Wahlbeobachter blogs for the Handelsblatt. Backfisch’s most recent post is a scathing critique of President Bush’s constant use of fear as a propaganda tool.
Damit hat der wiedergeborene Christ Bush einmal mehr sein wahres Arsenal im Kampf ums Weiße Haus enthüllt: Wenn es knapp wird, feuert er Hass-Torpedos ab, operiert mit Verunglimpfungen und Panikmache. Eine Bäng-Bäng-Argumentation, die an den “sozialistischen Realismus” früherer Tage erinnert. Oder an die Agitations-Kanonade ein bisschen weiter zurück in der Geschichte. Das Bush-Lager drückt das Niveau der politischen Auseinandersetzung auf immer neue Tiefpunkte. Am Ende geht es nur noch um “wumm” und “peng”: Verdummung pur.
Commentary like this you would rarely find in the Handelsblatt!
