Military Voter Education Underway

Pentagon Seeks to Ensure Problems That Plagued 2000 Election Do Not Recur

Spec. Brian Hale, of Pittsburg, Kan., a member of the Kansas Army National Guard's 891st Engineer Battalion, Company A, casts an absentee ballot. (Ray Brecheisen -- Pittsburg Morning Sun Via AP)

Inside the magnificent atrium of Al Faw Palace, a retreat for Iraqi military officers under Saddam Hussein, hangs a poster aimed at the U.S. soldiers who now occupy the building. "It's your future -- VOTE for it," it urges. At a forward operating base on the other side of Baghdad, a "voting assistance officer" appears on a big-screen television and reminds hundreds of soldiers to cast their ballots in time for November's presidential election.

First Lt. Phan Ton, who is helping coordinate the military's voter education effort, said interest among the troops is high: "I think with soldiers being out here, they think they should have a say in something that could affect them in the future."

But whether the men and women serving their country overseas will get their say is far from sure.

The Defense Department has embarked on what it says is the most aggressive voter education campaign in military history, hoping to solve problems that caused thousands of military absentee ballots to be nullified in the 2000 election. But the effort has been marred by missteps.

An Internet voting plan was canceled, and a high-tech voting system the Pentagon is trying for the first time has been criticized by computer experts who say it could be tampered with and by voting-rights advocates who say it requires soldiers and Marines to forgo their right to vote in secret. Critics, including members of the Election Assistance Commission, which was established after the 2000 presidential recount to help the nation develop new voting procedures, worry that service members may again be disenfranchised.

"Has it improved? Yes," said Derek Stewart, director of military personnel issues at the Government Accountability Office, which has written several reports critical of the Pentagon's efforts. "Is it perfect? No. On November 2nd, is it going to work the way it's supposed to? That's anyone's guess," he said.

The military does not keep voter registration figures, but voting assistance officers in Iraq said they have noticed a sharp increase in the number of service members who want to vote -- the first time since the Vietnam War that a presidential election has been held when there is such a large troop deployment.

While Republicans have traditionally enjoyed a solid advantage among service members and their families, some analysts believe that long combat deployments and economic hardships endured by reservists and National Guard members could allow Democrats to cut into that support. President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry are both courting military voters, and a shift could prove important in battleground states with large military populations.

The problem may be that service members either will not be able to vote or that their ballots will not be counted in time. The military's history of difficulties in getting paper ballots to other countries was highlighted during the 2000 election debacle in Florida. Ballots arrived in supervisors' offices postmarked after Election Day, not postmarked at all or lacking a required witness signature. The military vote broke in Bush's favor, and a fierce battle ensued as to whether those ballots should be counted.

Problems were not limited to Florida; by the Pentagon's estimates, up to 29 percent of military personnel who wanted to vote but did not either did not get an absentee ballot or received it too late. A 2001 GAO report found that overseas ballots sent by military personnel and civilians were four times more likely to be disqualified than domestic absentee ballots.

Since then, the Defense Department has announced several initiatives, including efforts to ensure that mailed ballots are given priority handling. The Pentagon has worked with state elections officials so that many states will try to mail absentee ballots at least 45 days before an election to ensure service members receive them in time to vote, though some have missed their deadlines because of legal disputes over whether to include Ralph Nader and a variety of initiatives on ballots. Most states will also fax blank ballots to service members, and some allow ballots to be downloaded from the Internet.

Defense officials have tried to make sure ballots are returned quickly to service members' hometowns. Twenty-three states will accept the voted ballots by fax, and Missouri and North Dakota announced they will accept ballots via a new Defense Department e-mail system. "We're confident that we're providing all the information and the capability that our service members, as well as U.S. citizens living overseas, need to obtain and return absentee ballots in a timely manner," said Lt. Col. Ellen Krenke, a Defense Department spokeswoman.

But skeptics such as Samuel F. Wright, director of the Military Voting Rights Project for the National Defense Committee, point to problems that have plagued a Pentagon effort he said remains "disorganized."

"I'm concerned there will still be a lot of people disenfranchised," he said.