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LAW REVIEW 1074
New York, Illinois Fail to Deliver Absentee Ballots
By Captain Samuel F. Wright, JAGC, USN
(Ret.)
7.0—Military Voting Rights
The MOVE Act permits states
to apply to the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) for one-time waivers of the
45-day rule. To obtain the waiver, a
state must show an undue hardship (caused by something like a late primary)
preventing the state from mailing ballots by the 45th day before the
election and a satisfactory alternative arrangement (satisfactory to SECDEF) to
ensure that UOCAVA voters have sufficient time to receive, mark, and return
their ballots in time for those ballots to count, despite the state having
missed the 45-day deadline.
Ten states, the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands
applied to the SECDEF for waivers of the 45-day rule this year. Five states, including New York, were granted waivers because late primaries
prevented those states from mailing out ballots by September 18, 45 days before the election. To obtain the SECDEF waiver, New York promised to have ballots mailed by October 1 and to
extend the deadline for the return of mailed-in ballots from outside the U.S. (including APO and FPO addresses) to provide at least 45 days of
round trip ballot transit time. The
problem is that 13 major counties, including all five New York City boroughs (Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten
Island), seriously missed
the October 1 deadline. These counties
were so late that there was not time for the unmarked absentee ballot to get to
the voter in Afghanistan, much less to the voter and back, by November 2.
It was predictable that the
states with late primaries would have difficulty meeting the 45-day rule. Until the results of the primary have been
officially certified, the local election official cannot print general election ballots, much less mail them out. But the problem of late absentee ballots is
not limited to late primary states. One
of the worst states this year is Illinois, and it held its primary on February 2. Thirty-five of the 110 Illinois counties seriously missed the September 18 deadline
for mailing absentee ballots. One of the
seriously late counties was St. Clair County, home to 261,000 people and to
Scott Air Force Base.
The Department of Justice
(DOJ) sued Illinois because of this late mailing. The lawsuit was resolved with a consent
decree under which overseas ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day
will be counted, but the consent decree extended by only one day (November 1 to
November 2) the deadline for these ballots to be postmarked. Some Illinois voters in Afghanistan and elsewhere will be disenfranchised because they
won’t even receive their unmarked ballots by Election Day.
Readers, Election Day is next
week and this is our last chance to obtain data for the 2010 general election,
the first election to which the MOVE Act applies. There are 7,810 local election officials (County Clerks, County Registrars, Town Clerks, etc.) who administer absentee voting
for federal elections. Please contact
your local election official. Did he or
she mail out ballots to UOCAVA voters by Saturday, September 18? Please let me know what your local election
official says. My e-mail is swright@roa.org. You can reach
me toll-free at 800-809-9448, extension 730.
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