New procedures to speed overseas absentee balloting

  • Published
  • By Jim Garamone
  • American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON (AFPN) --  Absentee ballots from servicemembers overseas will move faster and with greater control for the 2004 elections, Department of Defense and U.S. Postal Service officials said June 2.

Charles S. Abell, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, and Paul Vogel, the Postal Service's vice president for network operations management, discussed the changes made in the absentee balloting process for 2004.

"We've had a year of getting ready for the upcoming federal election, focusing on how we can help military personnel, their families and civilians overseas to exercise their right to vote," Mr. Abell said. "As we have looked at every sort of situation, problem and impediment, and tried to resolve them, we have come to another resolution to help us move ballots and ballot-request materials from the hand of the overseas Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine or family member to (his or her) county boards of elections."

Mr. Vogel said Postal Service officials have been working with the Military Postal Service Agency to improve the process, "because it is that important, especially with a presidential election year coming up. If it's even as remotely close as the last election was, every ballot really counts."

The combined team has put together a process that will expedite the overseas absentee balloting mail flow and give greater accountability, Mr. Vogel said.

The Postal Service has no special program in place for servicemembers voting absentee in the United States.

"The Postal Service does a great job within the United States," Mr. Abell said. "Our problem has always been more with the overseas voters."

Essentially, Postal Service officials will ask local postmasters to contact the officials in counties that are responsible for mailing ballots and to whom completed ballots are returned.

"Traditionally, 30 to 45 days in advance of the elections, the blank ballots will be mailed out from those counties," Mr. Vogel said.

Postal Service officials are asking county officials to hold out the military ballots. Local postmasters will take those ballots and sort them for three different destinations: San Francisco for servicemembers based around the Pacific Rim, New York for Europe and the Middle East, and Miami for Central and South America. The balloting materials will go to those destinations via the Postal Service's Express Mail service, Mr. Vogel said.

Once at these military mail "gateways," Postal Service managers will log in the Express Mail pieces and sort them to the different military ZIP codes.

"All the balloting materials will be sorted first," Mr. Vogel said. They will go into specially marked mail trays and handed over to the airlines.

Airline workers will identify the trays that have voting materials, and those trays will again receive priority, officials said.

In theater, military postal officials will ensure balloting materials are given priority as they travel to the servicemember.

Once a servicemember votes, the reverse process is the same -- balloting materials receive priority, and ballots are placed in specially marked trays. One change, however, is that when ballots are received at the APO or FPO, mail clerks will put postal cancellation marks on the envelopes. This gives an accurate measure of the date and time a ballot is received.

At the postal gateways, ballots will go back into the normal mail flow in the United States that allows for a three-day delivery, Mr. Vogel said.

On Oct. 30, postal officials will again segregate balloting materials and use Express Mail to send ballots back to county officials. Election Day is Nov. 2, but these special-handling procedures will continue through Nov. 8, Mr. Vogel said; however, some ballots received after Election Day may not be counted, because different jurisdictions have different voting requirements.

To be on the safe side, DOD and Postal Service officials recommend servicemembers and their families follow Federal Voting Assistance Program guidelines. Program officials are designating the week of Sept. 6 as Get Out the Vote Week. By then, "if servicemembers haven't already requested their ballots, that's the week to do it," Mr. Abell said.

They are also designating the week beginning Oct. 11 as Overseas Voting Week.

"If you vote that week, your ballot should arrive … before Election Day, which will qualify your ballot to be counted," Mr. Abell said.

Traditionally, servicemembers and their families vote at a higher percentage than the general population. All administrations have encouraged them to exercise their rights to vote.

"We don't care how they vote, just so long as they do," Mr. Abell said.