Election 2012: The Cratering Military Vote
If you need more evidence that military voting rights are eroding before our eyes, look no further than the Commonwealth of Virginia, where absentee ballot requests by military personnel have dropped an astonishing 70 percent from 2008.
That’s the word from an extensive report in the Virginia Watchdog that focused on data provided by Military Voter Protection (MVP) Project. The report finds that out of more than 126,000 registered military voters in Virginia, a paltry 1,746 have requested absentee ballots. The Watchdog reports:
The dropoff is ironic, considering that Congress passed the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE) in 2009 to help highly transient military voters obtain absentee ballots wherever they are stationed.
“The fact is that an incredibly small percentage of military voters are requesting absentee ballots for the 2012 election, even though a majority of military members — roughly two-thirds — will need to vote by absentee ballot,” [Eric Eversole of the MVP Project] said.
Eversole acknowledged that personal responsibility figures into the equation, but he said service members aren’t getting the same voter-assistance and access that civilians receive through motor-vehicle offices and social-service agencies.
“We’re not seeing the same level of emphasis [on military voting] that we saw four years ago,” Eversole told Virginia Watchdog.
It’s not just Virginia: the MVP project notes that military absentee ballot requests are down in Florida (46 percent decrease); North Carolina (59 percent decrease); Alaska (52 percent decrease); and Ohio (70 percent decrease).
Eversole lays the blame on the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), the Department of Defense (DoD) program responsible for ensuring that military personnel have access to reliable information about their voting rights. But as we’ve seen recently, that information isn’t necessarily reliable—just last week I wrote about the scandal of an FVAP web page for Wisconsin that listed the wrong deadline for returning ballots.
In this Fox News report, a DoD spokesperson defends the department’s performance on military voting rights, arguing that the 2008 numbers were higher because of contested primaries on both the Republican and Democratic sides. That may be true, but it can hardly be expected to account for declines of up to 70 percent. (Moreover, there’s far more at stake than just the White House; we also have heated Senate and House races and any number of state and local offices up for grabs.)
The DoD spokesperson also notes that total voting numbers won’t be available until after the election. Well, yes, obviously. But that smokescreen doesn’t change the fact that far too many of our uniformed service personnel simply will not be voting in the 2012 election—and after the election, there will be little incentive for the FVAP to get its act together. Don’t be surprised when we’re having this same discussion during the 2014 midterm election.
We’ve had plenty of warnings that military voters were on the verge of a massive disenfranchisement. The House Armed Services Committee was so alarmed about the FVAP’s failure to implement MOVE Act provisions that they called the program to account in a hearing last month; meanwhile, the MVP Project has been reporting for months that the outlook for military voting in this election year was “bleak.”
The MVP Project’s forecast is coming true in Virginia, Florida, Alaska, North Carolina and Ohio—and most likely in other states as well. In this year’s election, the voice of military voters and their families, who bear a disproportionately high cost for decisions made in Washington, will go unheard.
Jessie Jane Duff, Gunnery Sergeant, USMC (Ret) is a member of the Concerned Veterans for America’s organizing committee.
Dennis Hanson
Oct 08, 2012 @ 23:46:03
Like any other citizen, you have to step up, know your state’s election rules (sure not uniform across 50 states), request the ballot and in the end actually vote. Why do we expect a better turn out among military members and their families than we expect from the general population. Think the answer is apathy. While we see greater efforts extended to limit civilians the right to vote, why do we expect military members to have a greater right?
Jessie Jane Duff
Oct 09, 2012 @ 12:14:48
Hi Dennis, The military doesn’t deserve a greater right to vote. They deserve the same rights as the civilian population covered under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA, often referred to as Motor Voter) passed under President Clinton in 1993. The MOVE Act from 2009 requires DoD to provide voting assistance offices that are consistent with the NVRA. As it stands now, active duty military voters stationed overseas, and often stateside, do not have the services that NVRA requires such as (1) distributing the voter registration forms to each person who visits a voting assistance office (since over half of the overseas bases don’t have a voter assistance office, or, don’t have an office that is easily accessible), (2) provide assistance when completing the form and (3) sending completed forms to the appropriate election official. As a former active duty Marine, I recognize there is always an apathetic percentage of the population. However, active duty military does not have the same advantages for voter registration as their civilian counterparts have. Active duty votes that were cast and counted in the 2008 elections was 30% compared to 62% of the voting-age population in the same election. This isn’t just because of a lack of voting assistance centers; it is a direct result of a history of states not mailing the absentee ballots out on time to those stationed overseas.
Bodhi Kyle
Oct 03, 2012 @ 12:07:55
Virginia has made it next to impossible for people that do not own a fax machine, printer, etc. to “fill out the form and sign” for an absentee ballot. Many of these individuals do not own one of the above (printer, fax, etc.) are VETERANS.
Or, the military personnel or veteran is serving far away and unable to print, sign, scan etc. to send in an absentee ballot. The third, scenario or reason, utilizing government / corporate resources for election activities are against policy.
These are just some of the examples of their way to limit the military and veteran vote in Virginia.
Dennis Hanson
Oct 08, 2012 @ 23:38:20
Bull! Nobody will say anything about printing out election related materials!
Ed Payne
Oct 02, 2012 @ 12:14:16
“…2008 numbers were higher because of contested primaries on both the Republican and Democratic sides.” – What a load of BS. If we were talking about ballots for primaries then yes it is possible.
I sent a request to the Virginia Elections people for information regarding the number of ballot requests received, the number rejected and the number sent. I want to understand if we have an issue completing the ballot requests or not.