August 2010

Under the recently enacted Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act (MOVE Act), local election officials are now required to mail absentee ballots by the 45th day preceding Election Day, or Saturday, September 18, 2010.

Please contact your local election official--County Clerk, County Auditor, County Registrar of Voters, Town Clerk, etc.  The titles vary, but you can figure it out.  Please remind the local election official that he or she must mail out ballots by September 18, so that military personnel from your community will have the opportunity to vote no matter where the service of our country has taken them.  This is now an explicit and unambiguous requirement of federal law.  Alibis and excuses are not acceptable.

Please contact the local election official again on Monday, September 20, to determine if the ballots have in fact been mailed.  If not, please notify Bob Carey, the Director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program in the Department of Defense.  His e-mail is Robert.Carey@fvap.gov, and his telephone is 703-588-8118.

Please see Law Review 1055 and Law Review 1056 and my recent "Daily Caller" article.  

We also need your financial support to continue and expand upon the services of the Service Members Law Center.  You can contribute by credit or debit card, or mail us a check to 1 Constitution Ave. NE, Washington, DC, 20002.  Make your check payable to "ROA" and on the memo line please include "SMLC" or "Service Members Law Center."

Thanks for your help in ensuring that military personnel from your community will have the opportunity to vote this year.

Respectfully,

CAPT Samuel F. Wright, JAGC, USN (Ret.)
Director, Service Members Law Center
Reserve Officers Association