The Soldier Voting Scandal
- From: jose <josefsoplar@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:31:27 -0700 (PDT)
The Soldier Voting Scandal
By Robert Novak
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Rep. Roy Blunt, the House Republican whip, on July
8 introduced a resolution demanding that the Defense Department better
enable U.S. military personnel overseas to vote in the November
elections. That act was followed by silence. Democrats normally leap
on an opportunity to find fault with the Bush Pentagon. But not a
single Democrat joined Blunt as a co-sponsor, and an all-Republican
proposal cannot pass in the Democratic-controlled House.
Analysis by the federal Election Assistance Commission, rejecting
inflated Defense Department voting claims, estimated overseas and
absentee military voting for the 2006 midterm elections at a
disgracefully low 5.5 percent. The quality of voting statistics is so
poor that there is no way to tell how many of the slightly over
330,000 votes actually were sent in by the absentee military voters
and their dependents and how many by civilian Americans living abroad
-- 6 million all total.
Nobody who has studied the question objectively sees any improvement
since 2006, and that is a scandal. Retired U.S. Marine Corps Capt.
Charles Henry wrote in the July issue of the U.S. Naval Institute
Proceedings: "While virtually everyone involved ... seems to agree
that military people deserve at least equal opportunity when it comes
to having their votes counted, indications are that in November 2008,
many thousands of service members who try to vote will do so in
vain."
Henry, now an independent broadcast journalist, has personal
experience with this enduring scandal. While serving as a Marine at
sea off Iran, he received his 1980 presidential ballot too late to
count. President Harry Truman said of troops fighting in Korea, "The
least we at home can do is to make sure that they are able to enjoy
the rights they are being asked to fight to preserve." But the U.S.
military that has so perfected the art of war over the past half-
century is at a loss to enable soldiers to vote.
A combat officer has enough to do without handling the votes of
troopers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. A Defense Department
Inspector General's report in March last year recommended "appointment
of civilian personnel" as "voting assistance officers." The Pentagon
brass rejected the idea.
I reported four years ago that the problems of 2000 overseas military
voting had not been corrected for the 2004 presidential election. At
that time, Under Secretary of Defense David Chu was put in charge of
the problem. During massive turnover at the Pentagon, Chu remains in
place -- best known among critics of the military vote problem for his
chronic failure to return telephone calls.
Congressional attention to the problem has been scattered and limited
mostly to Republicans such as Sen. John Cornyn, who earlier this year
decried "a lack of will" at the Pentagon to solve the voting problem.
Democratic interest about tackling the problem might be tempered by
apprehension that soldiers will cast too many Republican votes.
Nevertheless, at least one prominent Democrat -- House Majority Leader
Steny Hoyer -- described himself to me as eager to deal with this
problem. (Hoyer's home state of Maryland is one of the worst
offenders, with ballots of only 4.1 percent of overseas voters counted
in 2006.) Hoyer and Blunt, who have become friendly adversaries in a
bitterly partisan Congress, conferred several weeks ago and agreed in
principle on co-sponsoring a resolution aimed at getting the Defense
Department moving.
Hoyer wanted the resolution to cover expatriate Americans as well as
the military, and Blunt did not object. They turned the issue over to
their staffers and went about the business of major legislation. Blunt
had instructed his staff to seek agreement with Democrats but, if not,
to introduce a resolution applying only to the military, which was the
outcome.
One presidential staffer who is familiar with the situation privately
dismisses the Pentagon bureaucrats as "hopeless." In a lame-duck
administration counting the days before a troubled eight years finally
end, American fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan deprived
of their right to vote constitute the least of White House worries.
Copyright 2008, Creators Syndicate Inc.
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