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Group hopes to fix overseas voting problems

A coalition is forming to address voting problems for military personnel and overseas voters, according to the Pew Center on the States.

The Alliance for Military and Overseas Voting Rights will hold its first meeting on Jan. 29, said David Becker, director of Pew’s “Make Voting Work” project.

“It’s a coalition of military and overseas civilian groups committed to making sure the election system fully serves military and overseas voters,” Becker said.

It will include groups who are advocates for military members, contractors, foreign service officers, religious groups and law enforcement, he said. It will also address problems of military members voting domestically by absentee ballot.

Becker said the nation’s voting system clearly is not serving military voters overseas, as shown by Pew’s recently released study that examined states’ absentee voting processes.

Information is not yet available about how successful military members actually were in voting in the 2008 election, but military and overseas voters were at risk of not having their votes counted, Becker said.

Military voters from 16 states and the District of Columbia do not have enough time to vote, considering the states’ election systems, the time required for mail delivery, and other issues, according to the “No Time to Vote” report released Tuesday by The Pew Center on the States.

An overseas service member voting in Alabama, for example, needs to start the voting process of voting 88 days before Election Day in order to get the ballot back in time. Alabama does not allow electronic submission for voter registration or casting ballots.

“If you’re active duty, your ability to cast your ballot depends on your state,” said Kil Huh, research director for the Pew Center on the States.

Those who vote successfully “do so in spite of state laws, not because of them,” Huh said.

The challenges vary because the states’ processes vary, the study said. One issue is that when a state’s process relies entirely on military mail, voters need more time. The researchers said states should build at least 45 days into the process for ballots to travel between election offices and voters. That was one of the state legislative initiatives recommended by the Defense Department’s Federal Voting Assistance Program.

No single reform will work for every state, but adopting a fully electronic process for sending materials could ensure overseas military personnel have time to vote, the researchers said. They noted, however, that questions have been raised about the privacy and security of returning completed ballots by fax or e-mail. Further studies need to be done, Becker said.

But even if states send out only the blank ballots electronically, that would improve the odds for service members to successfully vote, researchers said.

The report makes clear “that there is every need for, and no reason to oppose, the electronic transmission of absentee ballot applications by military and overseas voters, and electronic transmission of blank ballots back to those voters,” according to a joint statement by the Overseas Vote Foundation and the National Defense Committee.

“Simply put, states rule,” said said Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, president and chief executive officer of the Overseas Vote Foundation. “State legislation and technology adoption make a dramatic difference in whether our military can effectively vote from overseas.”

In analyzing the other reforms recommended by the Federal Voting Assistance Program office, researchers recommended that states expand and promote the use of the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot as a backup. That ballot could be expanded to include primaries, special elections, ballot initiatives and state and local elections.

States also should eliminate requirements for ballots to be notarized. Eight states require notarization, which adds an average of three days to the process, Huh said.

Obtaining notarization can be difficult and expensive in some foreign countries.