Senate panel votes to facilitate military voting

WASHINGTON — Legislation to remove some of the red tape that causes the ballots of thousands of military personnel to be lost or uncounted won the approval of a Senate panel Wednesday.

The legislation, giving military and other overseas voters more time to send in ballots and expanding electronic access to voting forms, came two months after a congressional study found that some 25 percent of would-be military voters are disenfranchised because of communications and bureaucratic problems.

The Senate Rules and Administration Committee voted unanimously to approve the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act. Its sponsors say they may try to add it as an amendment to a defense spending bill currently on the Senate floor so that it will become law before next year’s election.

The measure would require that states provide military and other overseas voters with ballots at least 45 days ahead of an election to ensure there is enough time to complete and return them. It would also require states to make registration and absentee ballot request forms available on the Internet and bar states from rejecting military ballots for lack of a notary signature.

“This bill will remove the barriers that too often conspire to disenfranchise our military men and women,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the committee and sponsor of the legislation with Sens. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and Ben Nelson, D-Neb. “If we can deliver supplies and high-tech equipment to the front lines of combat, we can figure out how to get our troops a ballot so they can vote.”

The committee-approved bill includes provisions from similar legislation proposed by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Mark Begich, D-Alaska, making sure that troops and family members have voter registration assistance provided on military installations.

The Congressional Research Service, in a May report, surveyed election offices in seven states with high numbers of military personnel. It said that of 441,000 absentee ballots requested by eligible voters — mainly active-duty and reserve troops — living abroad, 98,000 were mailed out but never received by election officials and another 13,500 were rejected because of a missing signature or the failure to notarize.

The Pew Center on the States, a division of the Pew Charitable Trusts, last January issued a report concluding that 25 states and the District of Columbia do not provide adequate time for overseas military personnel to vote and have their ballots count.

“Our election system has failed military and overseas voters for far too long,” said Doug Chapin, the center’s director of election initiatives.

The bill is S. 1415.

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