Army News, news from Iraq, - Army Times

Absentee voter reform approved by Senate

A long-sought overhaul of the absentee voting process for service members was approved Thursday by the Senate and appears well on its way to becoming law.

The Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, or MOVE Act, would require states that accept federal funds to support elections to set up a streamlined process for service members to register to vote and to request, receive and return absentee ballots.

The use of e-mail and fax to get registered and request ballots would be required, and delivery of completed ballots would have to be done by priority mail or other express service, under terms of the legislation that was attached by voice vote to S 1390, the Senate’s version of the 2010 defense authorization bill.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who for years has been pushing for reform of the military voting process, said is it long past time to act. “This is not a new problem, as it’s been formally documented in many reports. This legislation begins to right this national disgrace,” he said.

The goal, Cornyn said, is “to improve the voting process and ensure that every military service member and family member is able to participate in the elections and have his or her vote counted.”

“It is the least we can do for our troops to make sure their votes get counted when they are serving overseas,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the chief sponsor of the amendment. “This bill will remove the barriers that too often conspire to disenfranchise our military men and women.”

The legislation seeks to take advantage of technology to resolve problems with regular mail delivery that are part of the reason why military members, their families and other U.S. citizens living overseas have problems voting — but technology can’t solve everything.

In an attempt to ensure that a completed ballot gets counted after someone has gone through all of the effort to register and request a blank ballot, the bill would require, under most circumstances, that a state deliver ballots at least 45 days before a federal election and count ballots that are postmarked on election day or earlier up to 10 days after the election is over.

In another move to make it easier for service members to vote, the bill would bar states from requiring that a military ballot be notarized in order for it to be counted.

Putting the voting legislation onto the annual defense policy bill is seen as a way of speeding up passage so the new rules could be in place before the 2010 elections, Schumer said.

While there is no similar provision in HR 2647, the House version of the 2010 defense authorization bill, there is support for the voter bill among members of the House Armed Services Committee, who will negotiate with the Senate on a final version of the broader defense measure before final passage.

One of the House committee members pushing for change is Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Calif., a freshman lawmaker and Marine Corps veteran who served two combat tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. He said he had problems getting absentee ballots while he was in the service.

Hunter said it is clear the problems he experienced were not unique. A review of the 2008 election found about one-quarter of the ballots requested by service members were never counted because of a combination of delivery problems, insufficient time for service members to complete and return them, or ballots being rejected by election officials.