Federal Voting Assistance Program
IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR SERVICE MEMBERS IN AFGHANISTAN
October 24, 2012 — Alexandria, Va. – On Friday, October 19, 2012, a contracted transport aircraft crashed at Shindand Air Base in Afghanistan and was destroyed along with 4,700 pounds of mail inbound to Afghanistan.
We do not know if there were any ballots in the destroyed mail, but all of the mail was bound for the zip code 09382 (Shindand, Farah, and Camp Stone (also known as Herat)).
All military and overseas voters who have not received requested ballots from their local election official yet are strongly encouraged to fill out the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB) at FVAP.gov and return it as soon as possible. All military and overseas voters who have received requested ballots from their local election official should complete it and return it as soon as possible.
If you receive your State ballot after submitting the FWAB, vote and return the State ballot as well. You will only receive one vote as the State will only count your FWAB if the State ballot is not received by the deadline. If your State ballot is received by the deadline your State ballot will be counted and the FWAB will be disregarded.
FVAP sent an email to all local election officials recommending that if they sent any ballots to the zip code 09382, they should contact the voter and resend a new ballot, as the first ballot may have been destroyed in the crash and fire.
Voting Assistance Officers are informing Service members in the area impacted by this incident to submit a Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot.
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If you'd like more information on the Federal Voting Assistance Program or need help with the absentee voting process please visit FVAP.gov for live chat assistance, call FVAP at 1-800-438-VOTE or DSN 425-1584 (CONUS)/312-425-1584 (OCONUS), or email vote@fvap.gov. Remember, you also can contact your unit or installation voting assistance officers. And don’t forget to “like” us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/DoDFVAP and follow @FVAP on Twitter for election updates throughout 2012.
Last updated: 01.15.2013
