by Libby Lewis
November 2, 2008 · Voting experts are expecting a huge wave of military absentee ballots this year. The 184,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have a lot at stake in the vote to choose their next commander-in-chief.
The mechanics of military voting are better than they used to be. But “better” doesn’t always cut it for troops in war zones.
Teresa Purcell got a call from her husband nine days before Election Day. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said, “we’re not going to be allowed to vote for president of the United States because we’re not getting the ballots.”
Robert Purcell was calling from Afghanistan, where he’s serving with the New York National Guard.
He told his wife his troops got ballots, but that they were the wrong ones.
“He said, ‘They gave us the ballots for the local Puerto Rico election,’” Teresa recalls.
It’s not clear what happened, or whether the snafu can be fixed in time for his 13 troops to meet New York’s deadline.
But his phone call — coming from a true battleground on the eve of the U.S. election — illustrates the many glitches in military voting.
‘Almost An Afterthought’
“You would think if anybody’s vote ought to count first, it would be those who are deployed defending our freedom and fighting for our country,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) says. “But yet they seem to be almost an afterthought.”
Cornyn sponsored a bill to deal with some of the glitches. The bill passed the Senate unanimously, but the House didn’t take it up in time for this election.
“There shouldn’t be this many opportunities for failure along the way,” Cornyn says.
The fate of a ballot can be tricky, with thousands of local election officials interpreting their state’s laws. And even in the 21st century, military voting still relies largely on little pieces of paper flying back and forth — between two postal services, civilian and military.
“The absentee voting system was built around the idea we’re going to be sending ballots around the corner — not around the world,” says Bob Carey, senior fellow at the National Defense Committee. The committee works to protect voting rights for people in the military. Carey is also on the board of the Overseas Vote Foundation, a nonpartisan group that uses technology to make military voting easier. Continue Reading »
