By Jaclyn Houghton CNHI News Service
OKLAHOMA CITY — Air Force Lt. Thomas Terrell may be absent from Florida, but his vote won’t be this November.
Terrell, air weapons officer with the 552nd air control wing at Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest City, lived in Florida about two years ago and still participates in the state’s election process by absentee ballot. The Nebraska native said he has in-laws in Florida and does not know if he may one day call the Sunshine State home again.
“Although I may not be living in the state,” Terrell said, “I want my voice to be heard.”
But election officials are concerned not all military voices are heard in the election process, especially those stationed overseas.
Paul DeGregorio, chairman of U.S. Election Assistance Commission, wants states to provide more time for military voters and voters abroad to return absentee ballots, and wants states to adopt more electronic options for accepting absentee votes.
“We know these men and women who are serving our country overseas and are dying every day deserve every opportunity to participate in our elections,” he said.
Department of Defense estimates at least 3 million U.S. citizens eligible to vote live outside the country. DeGregorio said there are about 2.4 million uniformed military personnel and their families in the United States and abroad. Making sure overseas votes count in elections could make an impact on contested races, he said.
Make sure every vote counts
In the 2000 presidential election, DeGregorio said, military votes were looked at closely because many did not arrive to election offices until after the election. Under Uniformed and Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act, states must accept and process absentee ballot requests at least 30 days before an election. Each state can dictate whether it accepts ballots postmarked by Election Day.
Oklahoma requires an absentee ballot in election workers’ hands by Nov. 7 or the vote does not count, according to Michael Clingman, Oklahoma secretary of the State Election Board.
But state legislators say allowances need to be made for absentee votes.
Sen. Glenn Coffee, Republi-can floor leader, proposed legislation in 2005 to increase the time election boards can begin sending out absentee ballots to 45 days before an election and to provide a six-day grace period after an election to count absentee votes that arrive. Senate Bill 942 passed out of committee but did not get a floor vote. Coffee said he will push the bill again, possibly during the 2007 legislative session.
“With more and more people that are overseas now, it just makes sense they aren’t disenfranchised and their vote counts,” said Coffee, of Oklahoma City.
Clingman said the election board began sending out absentee ballots at the end of September, giving voters about six weeks to complete the voting process.
A close Senate race in 2004 in Lawton sparked issues about whether to count ballots that did not arrive prior to the election. The race between Sen. Randy Bass and Kenneth Easton came down to 51 votes, with Bass the eventual winner.
Monica Baughman, secretary of the election board in Comanche county — where Lawton is located — said the department must start mailing absentee ballots at least 30 days before the election but must fulfill absentee ballot requests up until the Wednesday before an election. She said in the 2004 election, late requests caused some ballots to delay getting back to the county until after the election.
“A lot of it is the voter’s responsibility to get those in on time,” Baughman said.
DeGregorio said it is not always possible for voters to get the ballots back to county offices in time. He said it generally takes 45 days to request a ballot, fill it out and send it back.
Terrell says he voted absentee in the 2004 presidential election and the process went smoothly. He was not, however, voting from overseas. He already has sent in his request for a ballot and hopes to receive it soon.
As painless as possible
All U.S. military installations have voting officers to make casting ballots as painless as possible.
Sarah Boutwell, installation voting assistance officer at Tink-er Air Force Base, said she fields about 20 to 25 calls a month from absentee voters. Each military unit on base has a unit voting assistance counselor Boutwell trains. The 100 counselors help military personnel fill out absentee ballot request forms and address any questions that arise.
“What’s tricky about voting is that every state has different forms,” said Boutwell, a civilian.
The majority of questions Boutwell receives deal with location of a voter’s legal residence. Some in the military may keep a residence in a state like Florida because there is no income tax.
Newcomers in the Air Force based at Tinker hear a briefing on voting at the weekly newcomers’ orientation. Boutwell said she also requires voting counselors to contact all personnel in each unit twice to encourage them to request a ballot and send it in. There 6,114 military assigned to Tinker, she said.
Vance AFB: ‘We encourage everyone to vote’
Officials at Vance Air Force Base operate in a similar manner.
Part of the orientation session at Vance includes information on voting. Voting assistance officers also post fliers in every unit with dates of elections per state, and the base operates a voting assistance hotline, like Tinker, said Air Force Maj. Dennis A. Hunt. Hunt is the alternate Vance installation voting assistance officer. There are about 1,900 military personnel assigned to the base.
Hunt has voted absentee for 14 years, including voting overseas when stationed in Germany.
“We encourage everyone to vote,” he said. “It’s a right and a privilege, and I would think they would want to exercise their right as citizens.”
Some states allow electronic forms of voting to help military personnel and overseas citizens exercise voting rights.
You’ve got mail
Oklahoma is one of 35 states that allow military and overseas voters to receive a blank absentee ballot by fax and is one of 26 states that allow the voters to return a voted ballot by fax. Other states allow military and overseas voters to receive or return ballots by e-mail.
DeGregorio wants to see all states allow electronic voting options to speed the absentee voting process.
The downside to faxing a ballot to election officials is the voter is giving up his or her privacy, he said.
Oklahoma adopted faxing about four years ago, Clingman said, noting less than 100 voters used the option in 2004.
But voting overseas by fax comes with its security issues. The ballots for military personnel overseas do not have to be notarized, Clingman said.
“If a person wants to lie in Germany and vote for someone else, that’s the price you pay for trying to get them to vote,” he said. “You’re not going to find a notary in Afghanistan.”
Leroy Bridges, director of outreach for Political Communi-cations Center at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, said the risks are minimal.
“If you’re going to forge one document, you can forge another,” he said.
Election Assistance Commis-sion is looking at how e-mail and fax options for voting are being utilized throughout the nation. DeGregorio said it is a matter of time before voting goes online.
“I think this is an area, with so many people using the Internet and the ease of it, that will come,” he said. “There’s a lot of security and encryption issues. I think the place to start for us is military and overseas voters.”
Houghton is CNHI News Service Oklahoma reporter.
