Having been in the Air Force for twenty-two years and finally retired...I can offer some analysis of the situation.
The US military is fully prepared to take ballots and put them on cargo planes and carry them to the nearest mail port in the US within hours (not days or weeks). It has generally been that policy for the past two decades and I don’t know of a single commander who hasn’t made sure that cargo aircraft were in the right places for the week prior to election and made daily trips if necessary to the east or west coast. The problem...bluntly...is not the US military.
As you look across at all fifty states and the 3,141 counties in America...all with varying political candidates and various ballot initiatives...with the vast majority having barely enough electoral clerks to support the county itself. A lot of the absentee ballots are not made or finalized until almost a month prior to the election (common because of various errors that trigger one revision after another).
It would help greatly if the federal government simply said that all absentee ballots would be done and sent to the printers as of a week after the last convention ends. It would help greatly if the federal government mandated a PDF file print-out that any GI could print at the shop or office printer...fill it out and have his commander swear it was an authentic absentee ballot and then delivered to the cargo planes immediately.
I personally believe that neither party truly wants to fix the problem because they would have to fix each state and county’s poorly planned process that they operate with currently. Its the same chatter that we have over voter ID and the huge fight against national ID cards. Both parties are using this game...to help each other. Neither appreciates the military vote or the problems with the national election. Just my humble opinion.
I remember reading about the Florida military ballots during the ‘hanging chad’ situation. The military had gotten the ballots back to the state on time and in proper condition. Apparently, there was no one to count them at that time so state officials said they might not ever be counted. That annoyed the h3ll out of me....