Subject:  American Community Security Update - October 4, 2002

Welcome to the October newsletter!

We use this service to provide you the most up-to-date safety and 
security related information we have available on a monthly basis.  
Should we receive any time-sensitive information of a security-related 
nature, we will use this channel to keep you informed immediately.  In 
addition to sharing security-related information, we will continue to 
include in the monthly version news and information of a more general 
nature.

Here are the topics for this month:

     -- Security Situation

     -- Make Sure Your Voted Ballot Arrives In Time To Be Counted!

     -- Courtesy Express Mail Delivery Services - FedEx and DHL

     -- Unsubscribing from this List

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Security Situation
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The security situation in Japan remains the same with no new threat 
information reported from either the American or the Japanese side 
other than the September 9 worldwide caution we distributed via this 
channel on September 10.

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Make Sure Your Voted Ballot Arrives In Time To Be Counted!
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Please remember that it is not possible to register to vote or vote 
directly at the U.S. Embassy.  You need to have registered to vote and 
mailed in your application for an absentee ballot well before election 
day.  

An important part of the absentee voting process is voting and 
returning your ballot in time to be counted.  In order to do this, 
citizens should carefully review all balloting and envelope 
instructions provided by the state.  In addition, to successfully vote 
and return a ballot citizens must also comply with ballot return 
deadlines and postmark requirements.  Correctly meeting all 
requirements and deadlines will help ensure your ballot arrives in time 
to be counted in the November 5, 2002 General Election. 

Important Note:  When mailing your voted ballot, please ask the mail 
clerk to hand stamp the ballot envelope so that a date is clearly 
visible.  The dated postmark will help ensure that the Local Election 
Official can make a proper determination of timely mailing.  Generally, 
if a state allows late counting of ballots, the ballot envelope must 
have been postmarked by a specified period.  In addition, we also 
recommend citizens always vote and return their regular state absentee 
ballot no matter when it arrives.  

The complete state-by-state deadlines for returning the voted ballot 
and/or postmark requirements can be found on http://www.fvap.ncr.gov.  
Please follow all state requirements when returning the voted ballot 
for the November 5, 2002 General Election. 

Remember:  If your state ballot does not arrive by October 15, 2002, 
you may be able to use the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB, SF-
186).  See the September 2002 edition of Voting Information News for 
details.  Current and back-issue newsletters are available on our 
Website at http://www.fvap.ncr.gov.

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Courtesy Express Mail Service
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Both FedEx and DHL have assured us that they will provide express mail 
delivery service free of charge to send absentee ballots back to the 
United States.  The deadline is November 1.  You can bring your ballots 
to the Embassy.  

You can also mail Federal Post Card Applications and Absentee Ballots 
bearing the "U.S. Postage Paid -- 39 USC 3406" stamp free of charge 
from the Embassy or mail them in using the regular Japanese post (with 
Japanese international postage, of course).  Unfortunately, e-mail 
Federal Post Card Applications cannot be mailed free of charge at the 
Embassy.

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Unsubscribing from this List
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same email address you used to subscribe.  Then, to leave the list, 
just send a blank email to:

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