Pete Hegseth urges troops to register to vote

The Hill ^ | 09/25/2026 | Filip Timotija

[DFG]

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday urged U.S. service members and their families to register and vote in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections, warning that 300,000 troops did not register to cast votes two years ago.

“Regardless of your home state or current duty status, you can use a standardized federal postcard to register and request a ballot, and if you’re forward deployed and your standard ballot is delayed, you can use the federal write-in absentee ballot. All of these processes are straightforward and protected by law,” Hegseth said in a nearly two-minute video released Friday, pointing the armed forces to the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) website.

The Pentagon chief’s message to commanders was the same.

“You’re not telling them who to vote for. You’re just telling them to vote,” he said.

Hegseth also told voting assistance officers in the video to “get out there” and register the service members.

“Every warrior deserves an opportunity to cast his or her ballot, and be confident that it will be counted. Keep our nation the land of the free and the home of the brave,” he said. “Get registered and vote.”

About 67 percent of active-duty military members were registered to vote in the 2024 election, a 3-point drop compared with 2020, according to the FVAP.

Seventy-one percent of the 1.3 million active-duty military members are eligible to cast an absentee ballot with special protections because they are stationed away from their voting residence, the FVAP said.

[Kleon]

How about we require them to vote?

[jacknhoo]

Good for Hegseth.

[RetiredArmy]

You cannot force the military to vote, just as you cannot make any citizen vote. Sad they won’t, but you cannot make anyone. I have never missed voting in my life. I have voted since the first Nixon administration.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

So.... just the same as every other Secretary of War has done for decades?