Military May Get Squeezed Out Of Their Vote

Decisions by Washington bureaucrats over the next four weeks will have a profound impact on the upcoming November elections. These bureaucrats will decide whether or not those serving in the military from twelve states will have a full and effective opportunity to participate. If they choose to do anything other than aggressively enforce federal laws protecting military voters, many of those serving our nation won’t have a voice.

Every American can do something about it.

As I have written about before, the MOVE Act — signed into law in October 2009 — set a mandatory minimum time of 45 days before any federal election to mail ballots to overseas voters. MOVE was a rebuke to the bureaucrats who were stuck on a non-statutory 30-day standard used as a minimum in previous elections.

Blind bureaucratic reliance on the 30-day standard resulted in 17,000 overseas ballots not being counted in the 2008 election. The military postal service says 60 days is needed to get ballots to our troops and back again, but a law is only as good as the people enforcing it.

Sounds like criminal negligence to me, but at the very least complete incompetence on the part of those responsible for getting ballots our overseas troops. If this doesn't happen, if our military serving overseas is denied the opportunity to vote; heads should roll!

UPDATE-

In Washington, politicians always like to release bad news on a Friday, as fewer people notice. Today, the Pentagon announced that it had granted the waiver requests of five states seeking to escape requirements to protect military voters.