8A NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, APRIL 28, 2008
NATION
Wildfire causes 550 homes to be evacuated
More than 400 firefighters contained the 350-acre fire
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Cal Fire airplane drops fire retardant on a brush fire near Arcadia, Calif., Saturday. More than 40 acres of brush has burned in steep terrain bordering the Angeles National Forest. More than 100 people were trapped for several hours at a nearby recreation area because of the flames.
SIERRA MADRE, Calif. — A wildfire that broke out in a popular hiking area blackened the steep slopes of foothills outside Los Angeles and led to evacuation orders for residents of about 550 homes, authorities said Sunday.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hundreds of people around Sierra Madre were told to flee Saturday night and Sunday as the wildfire continued to burn through dense brush, said Elisa Weaver of the Arcadia Fire Department.
No homes were damaged, though a small outbuilding was destroyed, Weaver said.
Sierra Madre is about 15 miles northeast of Los Angeles and just east of Pasadena.
More than 400 firefighters were attacking the 350-acre fire, aided by two helicopters with two water-dropping air tankers on the way. The fire was little contained and was expected to burn for another two or three days.
"This is pretty serious," Weaver said. "Some of these areas have not burned in over 40 years."
The cause of the blaze remained under investigation. It was first reported Saturday afternoon in a wooded area a few miles northeast of Pasadena. It was windy at the time and unseasonably hot, with temperatures approaching 100 degrees.
The flames also brought the evacuation of a Boy Scout camp Saturday and left about 100 hikers stranded in a parking lot near Chantry Flats. Most of the Scouts had already left the camp by the time the evacuation was ordered, Weaver said, and no injuries were reported.
Firefighters originally had hoped to have the blaze contained Sunday, but gusting winds late Saturday night kept the fire burning out of control and creeping toward nearby homes. The evacuation orders came shortly before 11 p.m. Two shelters have been set up for evacuees.
Flames outlined steep ridges about a mile above Sierra Madre, a San Gabriel Mountains foothill community of about 11,000 popular with artists.
Troops counted out in voting; e-mail could resolve problem
》 IRAQ
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Army Pfc. Joseph Anzack, 19, of Los Angeles, of Delta Company, 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment relaxes in the company barracks near Youssifiyah, Iraq on Feb. 2. 2007. Thousands of troops are struggling to cast their ballots for the presidential election. Voting by e-mail could solve some problems, but some worry about security and privacy issues.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan can speak to their families by Web camera and fight insurgents using sophisticated electronic warfare. Yet when it comes to voting, most troops are stuck in the past.
Communities in 13 states will send overseas troops presidential election ballots by e-mail this year, and districts in at least seven states will also let them return completed ballots over the Internet, according to data compiled by The Associated Press and the Overseas Vote Foundation.
That still leaves tens of thousands of service members in farflung military bases struggling to meet voting deadlines and relying largely on regular mail to get ballots and cast votes — often at the last minute because of delays in ballot preparations in some states.
Pentagon officials have been urging more states to move into the electronic age before November, a move that could help reverse recent trends in which thousands of military members asked for ballots but either didn't vote or had their ballots rejected for flaws.
Adding an electronic boost to the process would ease those problems, but it raises security and privacy concerns.
The push comes more than seven years after problems with overseas military voting set off an uproar in President Bush's narrow 2000 victory. In Florida, where Bush squeaked out a 537-vote victory that gave him the presidency, questions were raised about several tho.sand overseas military votes that came in after deadlines and were counted in some districts but not counted in others.
This year, when war is a key campaign issue, the election results in any state — particularly
one with heavy military voting — could turn on the votes of thousands of troops on the front lines.
"The personnel that fight our wars, the people who are most affected by the decisions on the use of the military, are being systematically denied the right to vote," said Bob Carey, a board member of the Overseas Vote Foundation, a voting rights group. "I find that pretty tough to swallow. If a president decides to deploy military troops somewhere, it's these troops that are going to go."
Carey, a Navy reservist who has served in Iraq, noted that ballots are often not prepared and ready to be mailed until 30 to 45 days before an election. And since it can take more than two weeks for troops to get ballots by regular mail, they sometimes get them too late to meet voting deadlines.
Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, who is president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, said the use of e-mail is a controversial subject among his members. Yet, he said his state had no problems using e-mail to both deliver and receive ballots from overseas voters.
"The fact of the matter is, we're voting in the same way we were voting in the 1850s." Rokita said of many other states. While a number of states are looking at the e-mail process to speed up delivery of ballots to military voters, he said the issue "is tied up in the national debate on whether we need a paper trail. Some are so scared of technology, they want to be tied to a piece of paper."
In most states that allow e-mail balloting, the voter must also follow up by mailing in the ballot. And states that permit e-mail balloting warn that it is not a secure way to transmit personal information.
States that will send a blank ballot by e-mail are: Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin. However, in some states, such as Illinois, only certain voting districts participate in the e-mail balloting.
States where voters can return completed ballots by e-mail are: Colorado, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Carolina and Washington.
Find yourself in Kansas City this summer.
Dozens of courses in three sessions-4-, 5- or 8-weeks long - easily fit around your summer plans. Get the credit you deserve - undergraduate and graduate courses available. Registration begins April 28.
UMKC
www.umkc.edu/summerschool