Another Election Decided by Disenfranchised Military Personnel

Military community opinions ^ | Captain Samuel F. Wright, JAGC, USNR

[Former Military Chick]

Thankfully, our nation was spared a lengthy and contentious recount in the Presidential race this time, but the same cannot be said for the State of Washington and its gubernatorial election. Finally, on December 23, Democrat Attorney General Christine Gregoire was certified the winner over Republican State Senator Dino Rossi, by 130 votes out of 2.9 million cast - a difference of 0.000048. This margin could easily have been accounted for by overseas military personnel who tried to vote, but whose ballots were not counted.

Rear Admiral (Retired) James J. Carey, a regular Military.com columnist, founded the National Defense Committee (NDC), and I am the Director of the NDC's Military Voting Rights Project. At considerable trouble and expense, NDC has obtained fax numbers for the nation's 5,000 local election officials (LEOs), including the 39 County Auditors in Washington. NDC also has automated equipment capable of sending out 5,000 faxes in about 24 hours.

In the last 15 months (September 2003 to December 2004), the NDC has sent out 35 broadcast faxes to the 5,000 LEOs. In November and again in December, we distributed a questionnaire that I devised, tracking how many military and overseas absentee ballot requests the LEO received, how many absentee ballots the LEO mailed to those applicants, and how many of those ballots came back on time and were counted. More than 500 LEOs have completed and returned our questionnaire, including Yakima County Auditor Corky Mattingly and Grays Harbor County Auditor Vern Spatz.

Military personnel and family members and overseas American civilians almost always use the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA) when registering to vote and applying for absentee ballots, because this Federal form is generally available from military and State Department voting assistance officers, and because Federal law requires all states to accept the FPCA as a simultaneous voter registration application and absentee ballot request. Accordingly, our questionnaire starts with the number of completed FPCAs that the LEO received.

Yakima County reports receiving 316 completed FPCAs and mailing ballots to all but one of those applicants. (That one applicant forgot to provide his or her date of birth.) Of the 315 ballots mailed, only 219 came back on time and were counted. Grays Harbor County reports receiving 196 completed FPCAs and mailing ballots to all of those applicants. Only 156 of those ballots came back on time and were counted. In just these two medium-sized counties, there were 136 disenfranchised military/overseas voters-voters that by applying for an absentee ballot made clear their intention to vote and their desire to have their vote counted - six more than the margin in the race for Governor.

During the Global War on Terrorism, the military voter is a moving target. Assume Sergeant Jones was in Baghdad when he requested his absentee ballot in July 2004, by completing the FPCA and mailing it to his LEO back home. But where was he in October, when the Military Postal Service Agency was trying to find him to deliver his unmarked absentee ballot? Fallujah? Tikrit? Mosul? Kuwait? Fort Bragg, North Carolina? Walter Reed Army Medical Center (Washington, DC)? Any system that depends upon finding Sergeant Jones to deliver a piece of paper, and then returning that same piece of paper to Sergeant Jones' hometown after he has written on it, is doomed to failure a substantial percentage of the time.

The basic problem is that we, as a nation, are still conducting absentee voting essentially as we did during World War II - by shipping pieces of paper around the world by snail mail. Can't we do better than that in the 21st Century? Today, it is possible to transmit a billion dollars by secure electronic means, and major financial transactions are conducted electronically every day. In the military, classified military information is transmitted electronically every day. We should be able to find a way to enable deployed service members to vote electronically with a high degree of confidence that their ballots will count.

Washington's cliffhanger election reminds us all of Florida 2000, when military and overseas absentee ballots literally decided the outcome of the election. Under a 1982 Federal court order that remains in effect, Florida is required to count, for Federal offices (President, Senate, and House), mailed-in absentee ballots from outside the United States (including but not limited to APO and FPO addresses) that arrive one to ten days after the election. On November 17, 2000 (ten days after the election), canvassing boards met at Florida's 67 county courthouses and counted 2,500 ballots that met these criteria. Among those 2,500 ballots, George W. Bush picked up a net gain of 739. In the final count, Bush carried Florida by just 537 votes. Please do the math. But for those 2,500 ballots and the Federal court order that required that they be counted, Al Gore would be President today!

To its credit, Washington has extended the deadline for the receipt of mailed-in ballots by 14 days - to November 16, 2004. Unlike Florida, Washington counts these post-election ballots for all offices, not just Federal offices. But even with these post-election days tacked on Washington does not provide enough ballot transmission time. Because of a late primary (as in Florida), Washington does not have absentee ballots printed and ready to mail until very late. Yakima County reports having ballots printed and ready to mail by October 8. Grays Harbor County reports that it started mailing out ballots during the "week of October 11."

The problem of disenfranchised military absentee voters is not new, and it is not limited to Florida and Washington. Many military personnel have been disenfranchised for as long as they have been permitted to vote at all, since World War II. I invite the reader's attention to the NDC Web site, www.nationaldefensecommittee.org. You can find a 1952 congressional committee report (Subcommittee on Elections, House Administration Committee), showing the disenfranchisement of military personnel fighting in the Korean War.

I invite the reader's attention to a 1952 letter to Congress from President Harry S. Truman, reprinted starting on page 35 of the report. I invite the reader's attention particularly to the President's most eloquent opening paragraph: "About 2,500,000 men and women in the Armed Forces are of voting age at the present time. Many of those in uniform are serving overseas, or in parts of the country distant from their homes. They are unable to return to their States either to register or to vote. Yet these men and women, who are serving their country and in many cases risking their lives, deserve above all others to exercise the right to vote in this election year. At a time when these young people are defending our country and its free institutions, the least we at home can do is to make sure that they are able to enjoy the rights they are being asked to fight to preserve."

I submit that President Truman's words are as true today as they were in 1952, and that those words should be addressed to today's legislators and election officials. With their help, America's sons and daughters in our Armed Forces will not have to wait another 52 years to enjoy a basic civil right that the rest of us take for granted.

[Zeppelin]

Regarding overseas military votes, why can't we just make the bases in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. polling places themselves? And then send back the results by fax or whatever.

[Quix]

AMEN! THANKS.