© September 9, 2012
The MOVE Act, designed to ensure that American men and women serving overseas have every opportunity to vote, in 2009 required military services to open a voter assistance office on every one of its installations, except for those in a war zone.
The goal was a good one. Voting is a bedrock right in America, although it's not always easy to access. Military members skew younger. Many have never voted. Remote registration can be complicated. So can absentee voting.
Before the MOVE Act, according to the Military Voter Protection Project, the Pentagon gave the job of helping new voters to an already busy junior officer or senior enlisted member in an individual unit. The result of such half measures, according to a report in Stars and Stripes, has been historically poor participation among the military.
"Researchers from the Overseas Vote Foundation found that nearly one-third of military and civilian voters living outside the country could not successfully cast a ballot in 2010 because of mismailed paperwork, too-tight deadlines and other common frustrations," the newspaper reported. "In 2008, it was almost half of those surveyed."
The new voter-registration offices were supposed to help servicemen cut through all the paperwork and exercise one of the rights they were sworn to protect. But the offices were expensive, and the MOVE Act didn't allocate an additional dime.
That's bad enough, but what happened in the implementation of the program was outrageous - starting with the fact that officials with the Federal Voting Assistance Program apparently can't count.
They reported to Congress in September 2011 that 224 U.S. facilities worldwide required "installation voting assistance offices," according to a report from the Defense Department's Inspector General.
"However, the list of 224 installations did not include major bases in the United States, such as Fort Meade, Maryland, or bases in overseas locations, such as Germany and Korea," the IG found. "Further, the list of 224 contained duplications or bases that were consolidated or closed as a result of the Base Closure and Realignment Commission."
So far, so bad.
Then the Inspector General tried to contact the offices, which are required under the law to provide walk-in, face-to-face, full-service assistance.
The IG tried telephone and email. It left messages. It used installation websites or directory assistance to find other numbers. If, after three days, it hadn't received a response, it considered the attempts a failure.
The IG's efforts failed more than 50 percent of the time.
Which led to this conclusion, couched in the careful language of a federal investigator:
"[W]e believe the number of [installation voting assistance offices] necessary to comply with the spirit of the law may significantly exceed the number of IVAOs actually in existence today."
There were other problems, according to the Military Voter Protection Project, many of them created by a resistant Pentagon. Surveys that were supposed to be done were repeatedly delayed by months. Offices that were supposed to be opened before the 2010 election didn't open until 2011. Though the offices were supposed to be part of in-processing, they often were left off checklists and were located far away from critical services.
The result, according to the project, has been abysmal. The organization figures that about two-thirds of servicemembers and their families will need to vote absentee. Nevertheless, "[o]f the 126,251 active-duty military members and spouses in Virginia, only 1,746 have requested absentee ballots for the November election. Similarly, in North Carolina and Ohio, less than 2,000 absentee military ballots have been requested by military members and their spouses in those states. Overall, in these three states, less than 2 percent of eligible military voters (5,411 out of 288,961) have requested absentee ballots."
A primary explanation from the Federal Voting Assistance Program is that fully complying with the law could cost between $15 million and $20 million every year, and that online tools and advertising will work better, even though many servicemembers - especially in the lowest grades, or at sea - don't have easy access to the Internet.
The IG agreed with the FVAP and recommended that the Pentagon work with Congress to leave implementation of the MOVE Act to the discretion of the secretary of defense.
That's enormously wrong-headed. FVAP already has an elaborate voter-registration website, with links to all the social media tools. They simply aren't working, as the August report from the Military Voter Protection Project makes clear.
Congress passed a law in 2009 designed to make voter registration easier for the nation's service members. The Pentagon defied that law, and the results are obvious. So is the military's decision to abandon its obligation to protect the rights of its soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.
Replies
The military should have the right to vote. They risk their lives for us.
This is horrible...
DemocRats Are The Scum Of The Earth!
If a serviceman or women cannot vote by ballot, then they should vote with a S.A.W. ..............................
THE MILITARY SHOULD BE FIRST IN LINE TO VOTE , WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH OUR PEOPLE ( THE MILITARY SACRIFICE THE MOST FOR THIS COUNTRY ,THEY SHOULD VOTE FIRST ).
But the people who don't want to count their votes are running the show and know they wouldn't be if that were the case.
Did you ever turn a bicycle upside down on the seat and handlebars, start turning the peddles and then put a stick or screwdriver between the spokes of the spinning wheel? Sounds like this was the model for implementing this law doesn't it? Flip it upside down to see if the wheel's will spin, start the peddles going to make sure it will work, then get frustrated and see how hard it is to keep from proper implementation. "OOPS! WE'RE OUT OF TIME AND MONEY!" Oh well! It may have sounded good, but we've got other things to do!
And the Pentagon was put forth as an example of why they thought government would be able to handle healthcare?
My thought is...the enemy creates conflict/wars, gets our precious boys out of the country...they can't vote. Instead of being in our country protecting us, they are in other nations, intermingling. God warned us.
As Americans we have been as sheeple. Because of the infiltration of the enemy within...increment by increment they have taken over our country. They want what we have. They want to redistribute our wealth around the world. God warned us. They have used multiculturalism, education, labor, finance, media, entertainment, government to destroy all white European Judeo/Christian nations.
Satan is the god of confusion. Confusion makes it easier for a world takeover.
Securing the necessary and correct materials needed for these men and women in the military to vote should be a priority, if anyone deserves the right to vote it's them.