Absentee voting upgrades put to test this year - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Absentee voting upgrades put to test this year

A study released Friday by the Pew Center on the States found that significant changes in state laws bode well for improving the absentee voting process for service members and overseas civilians this year.

But only time will tell how successful the recent improvements have been, said Tom Tarantino, senior legislative associate for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Tarantino, speaking on a panel during a one-day Overseas Vote Foundation summit, noted that there has been just one national election since the 2009 Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE) was enacted. “It’s going to take a couple of times before we actually figure out where the holes are,” he said.

But Bob Carey, director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program, said his office is trying to head off any problems early this year. “This is why we track how many Federal Post Card Applications have been downloaded, how many ballots have been sent overseas and returned to post offices from overseas, and why we talk to states to see how many ballots they’re sending out,” he said. “It’s not for enforcement, but so that we have an interim measure to identify problems before they become unsolvable.”

Troops and families want to know not only that their ballot was received, but that their vote was actually counted, said Candace Wheeler, deputy director of government relations for the National Military Family Association. She cited survey results that show 29 percent of military and overseas voters had not received their ballots in time to vote, indicating that some are still being disenfranchised.

“We’re not just talking about overseas,” she said, noting that the law applies to military members and spouses who vote absentee in the U.S.

If consumers can buy products online securely and then immediately get an email confirming their order, she said, why can’t voters get confirmation of their ballots?

Carey said military and overseas voters can track their ballots online to see if they were received. But because of privacy, a number of states separate the ballots from the identifying information when they receive it, so there is not always a mechanism to let voters know whether their votes were counted.

Jocelyn Benson, an Army wife and an associate law professor at Wayne State University Law School in Michigan, suggested that one way states could help military and overseas voters this year is to put information on their websites about state and local elections, and use social networks to reach voters overseas. She also suggested election officials consider putting polling places on overseas bases, because voters abroad feel disconnected from their states.

Tarantino suggested providing easy access to information about elections and voting through voters’ electronic devices, especially important for young troops whose turnout rate is traditionally low. “We expect the world to interact with us the way we interact with them,” he said.

While federal and state officials with a hand in the absentee voting process often focus on how many people cast ballots, the focus should be firmly fixed on the voting process itself, Tarantino said. “Our job as advocates is to make voting as easy as possible. We can’t make them vote,” he said.