Number 83, July-August 2003:
Military Voting Rights

By CAPT Samuel F. Wright, JAGC, USNR*

Q: I have enjoyed your Law Review articles, especially the ones about military voting rights (Law Reviews 3, 23, 43, 44, and 49). I am still angry about what happened when I tried to vote in the 1966 congressional election. (I was on active duty in Vietnam at the time.) On 4 July, I sent a letter to the County Clerk in my hometown, asking for an absentee ballot. Finally, the week before the election, I received not the hoped-for ballot but an absentee ballot request form. I was, of course, disenfranchised. Has there been progress on this issue in the intervening generation?

A: Yes. Under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Ballot Act (UOCABA), the secretary of defense, as the "presidential designee," is required to "prescribe an official postcard form, containing both an absentee voter registration application and an absentee ballot application." [42 U.S.C. 1973ff(b)(2).] That postcard form is called the Federal Post Card Application (FPCA), and those postcard forms are available from Voting Assistance Officers in military units at home and abroad, as well as from U.S. embassies and consulates outside the United States. You can also print out the form from the Web site of the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP), Office of the Secretary of Defense. You can find the FVAP Web site at www.fvap.ncr.gov.

Each state is required to "use the official postcard form … for simultaneous voter registration application and absentee ballot application." [42 U.S.C. 1973ff-1(4)]. If the voter so requests, the local election official must accept a single completed FPCA as a request for an absentee ballot for each federal election in that calendar year. [See 42 U.S.C. 1973ff-3(a)].

Note: Captain Wright is continuing his effort to reform absentee voting procedures for the benefit of military and overseas citizens. If you are willing to assist in this effort, please send him your complete name, postal address, and e-mail address. The best way to contact him is by e-mail, at swright@roa.org. You can also write to him in care of ROA.

*Military title used for purposes of identification only. The views expressed in these articles are the personal views of the author and are not necessarily the views of the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, the Department of Defense or the U.S. government.