Antiquated
Absentee ballot system disenfranchises many serving in the U.S. Military
Last January millions of Iraqi citizens went to the polls and voted. They did so under the watchful eyes of thousands of American soldiers and Marines. Chances are those same soldiers and Marines were denied their own right to vote.
There was no insidious plot or even an unexpected glitch in the voting. Rather, America’s absentee balloting system – originally designed for use in World War II – is to blame for the fact than many of our brave men and women serving both at home and abroad were unable to exercise that most basic of American freedoms – the right to vote.
The National Defense Committee has just completed a survey of the nation’s 7,838 election offices. A total of 760 local election offices returned their questionnaire. They reported having received 131,672 completed Federal Post Card Applications (FPCA), the military equivalent of an absentee ballot request form. Close to four percent (4,817) were rejected for lateness or procedural problems, allowing 126,855 actual absentee ballots to be mailed to active duty service members, spouses, and adult children of services members. Of the 126,855 absentee ballots mailed, only 94,280 were back on time and counted. That means 28.4% of those who applied for an absentee ballot were disenfranchised because their ballots could not be received, executed, and returned in a timely fashion.
Rear Admiral (Ret.) James J. Carey, Chairman of the National Defense Committee, says the reason for the low rate of voting participating by active duty service personnel has to do with the fact that the military voter is a moving target. “During the global war on terrorism the military service moves the voter around the world often on short notice,” Carey explains. “The military postal system cannot keep up with the voter and deliver the unmarked ballot in a timely manner.”
Within the active duty military, the sub-group that experienced the most difficulty in voting by absentee ballot was mobilized National Guard and Reserve personnel. More than 500,000 such individuals have been called to duty since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Admiral Carey notes that “at the time of the 2004 election, more than 40% of the U.S. military personnel in Iraq were mobilized National Guard and Reserve personnel.”
What can be done about the problem? The National Defense Committee is recommending that Congress authorize the development of an electronic balloting system for active duty military personnel. Given the rapid nature of deployments, and the constant shifting of troops from one trouble spot to another, no “snail mail” based system is likely to result in allowing active duty military personnel and their families to fully participate in the electoral process.
The committee correctly points out that the military routinely transacts classified information electronically via its own secure intranet. It further argues that large financial transactions are completed electronically every day by both government and private business. “If electronic systems are secure enough for huge sums of money and for our nation’s most sensitive secrets, it should be possible to develop a way for deployed military personnel to vote by secure electronic means,” said Samuel F. Wright, Director of the National Defense Committee’s Military Voting Rights Project.
Wright is right. Relying on a century-old system of paper absentee balloting in the electronic information age is absurd. Congress should get on this issue immediately, so a better system can be in place for the 2008 Presidential election. We owe it to our service men and women to ensure they get to participate in the very democracy they are fighting to defend. As Wright so aptly concluded: “Were it not for the sacrifices of military personnel, from the American Revolution to Operation Iraqi Freedom, none of us would have the opportunity to vote in free elections.
