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Interesting absentee ballot information from Phil Carter -

"The New York Times has an interesting story today on the mess we're likely to see in the next several days concerning absentee ballots for today's gubernatorial recall election. The Times reports that a record 3.2 million Californians have requested absentee ballots, and that just 2 million of those have returned them thus far -- leaving 1.2 million ballots outstanding as of election day."

"Let me add another variable here: military voters. I probably should've written an op-ed about this two months ago when there was time for the ACLU to make these arguments before the Ninth Circuit. If I'm right, thousands of military voters will not have their votes counted in this election. The culprit is the mail system, and specifically the tension between the tight timeline (60 days) of this recall and the relatively slow mail pipeline to deployed soldiers overseas.

Federal law (the "The Uniformed and Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act") provides for some mechanisms to assist military personnel overseas with voting, but these mechanisms are all premised on the fact of a regularly scheduled election with a lot of lead time.

The UOCAVA provides for a "back-up" ballot, called the Federal Write In Absentee Ballot ("FWAB"), should a citizen overseas not receive his or her regular ballot from the state or territory. Under the UOCAVA, citizens can only use the FWAB under three, very specific conditions. To be eligible for this ballot, the citizen must: (1) Be located overseas (including APO/FPO addresses); (2) Have applied for a regular ballot early enough so that the request is received by the local election official at least 30 days before the election; and (3) Not have received the requested regular absentee ballot.

In this case, Californians in uniform overseas have not had such lead time. They really have had 60 days, assuming they were plugged into the news and monitoring this situation. It's possible that a Californian deployed overseas might have missed both the 30-day cutoff for requesting an absentee ballot and the 30-day cutoff of requirement (2) above.

There are really two groups of soldiers overseas that are likely to be disenfranchised here:
(1) Reservists deployed from their homes inside California. Thousands of reservists have been mobilized from California and sent to Iraq. These soldiers likely deployed with a mail forwarding order in place, so that their mail would be forwarded by the U.S. Postal Service from their civilian address to their military APO address. In the best of times, the USPS can forward such mail domestically in a few days. In the military, such mail deliveries can take longer. Mail delivery in theater is less frequent (2-3 times per week), and it has to account for variables such as security.

- Best case (and also most unlikely) scenario: the reservist applied for an absentee ballot at the time of deployment, possibly in anticipation of the March 2004 primary. The absentee ballot gets sent to the home address in California, then forwarded to the soldier, who may or may not have time to read up on the issues. He/she then sends it back to California through military mail, which can take 2 weeks or longer to get back to the states.

- Middle case: the reservist deployed with other things on his mind and did not pre-request an absentee ballot. The regular ballot announcements arrive in the mail, get forwarded to him in Iraq, where they arrive after the absentee ballot deadline has already passed. It's too late to request an absentee ballot, and this soldier is precluded from using a Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot under the UOCAVA.

- Worst case (and also quite likely): the reservist wasn't even registered at the time of the election, possibly because he just turned 18 or because he had other things on his mind. He wants to start voting, because he feels a sudden sense of civic engagement while deployed to a combat zone. The soldier learns of the election late because he gets an infrequent news feed through his unit newsletter and First Sergeant. The soldier tries to register to vote, but by the time his registration gets to L.A. County's Registrar-Recorder, he's missed the deadline for the Oct. 7 election.
(2) Active duty soldiers with a home of record in California. There are literally thousands of these soldiers on active duty, and I was one them. For various reasons (such as maintaining residency for future tuition purposes), these soldiers maintain California as their state of legal residence. Most of these soldiers are permanently registered as absentee voters, meaning that their absentee ballots get generated automatically just as an infirm person's ballot would be. However, these soldiers' ballots still have to contend with the military mail system to get to and from the combat zone. And it's unlikely the soldier will have full access to the Los Angeles Times or San Francisco Chronicle to become an informed voter, so the vote may be somewhat diluted by an information deficit.

Most soldiers won't fit any of these hypotheticals, but they'll fall somewhere near the middle case. Legally, it's hard to pin the blame for why their vote won't count.

Certainly, the tight timeline of the election deserves most of the blame, because it's simply too short of a time window for the mail and absentee ballot systems to work properly. The mail service deserves some of the blame too. So do the soldiers, for not pre-requesting absentee ballots.

Unfortunately, the bottom line is this: many of these soldiers' votes won't count. I think that democracy suffers when anyone's vote goes uncounted. But I think it's patently offensive that many of our soldiers serving in combat overseas should lose their democratic voice because of the mechanics of this recall.

One of the strongest arguments for the 26th Amendment was that Americans who were old enough to fight and die for their country ought to have the right to vote. I think the connection between suffrage and service is very real, and that these soldiers are literally earning their right to vote right now with their blood and sweat in Iraq. Our election system has to do better at making their votes count."
posted by Phillip at 11:10 AM

http://www.philcarter.blogspot.com/2003_10_05_philcarter_archive.html#106555023717836064