Military turnout could tip some states' scales
Houston Chronicle ^ | October 24, 2004 | MICHAEL HEDGES, Washington Bureau



WASHINGTON - The enthusiasm of Afghans casting their first votes earlier this month made Maj. Rick Noriega of the Texas National Guard even more appreciative of his chance to participate in the upcoming U.S. election from just outside Kabul.

"It was very inspiring, very humbling, watching people vote in the first real election here ever, stretching back to the days of Alexander the Great," said Noriega, a Houston state representative on duty with the Guard. "I thought of people in our country who take voting for granted or don't vote at all."

At outposts from Germany to Iraq, and Afghanistan to South Korea, an estimated 400,000 military personnel and tens of thousands of family members will take part in the upcoming election via ballots mailed by county officials across America.

From all indications, military turnout will be heavy, far heavier proportionally than the civilian vote.

But could that vote sway the election?

Florida was decided by fewer than 600 votes in 2000. And there were five other states â?? New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon and New Hampshire â?? decided by fewer than 7,500 votes.

If margins like that occur again this year, then some states could be decided by the hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots flowing in from service members overseas. While the process varies a bit from state to state, military ballots from overseas will be counted for up to 10 days after the election, and only then will results be certified.

The Pentagon expects far more troops to vote than the roughly 70 percent who did in 2000.

"The turnout should be very high," said Army Lt. Col. Joe Richard, a spokesman for the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

"Past elections have shown that the military will vote in heavy numbers. One thing we learned after the 2000 election was that voter assistance officers were not as aggressive as they should have been in providing information and help. That has been an emphasis of ours."

Noriega and many military members have voted already, encouraged by an unprecedented effort inside the military to facilitate voting.

"It gave me a tremendous amount of confidence in the system," Noriega said. "Here we are in a less-than-Third-World country, and we have been well-informed about the election, and there has been an efficient system to give people the chance to participate."

About Florida The military vote would only be decisive in a nail-biter election.

Consider Florida: 20,759 active-duty and reserve members of the military list Florida as their legal residence for voting purposes. That is more than any state except the 30,117 who call Texas home.

The military likely will add about 15,000 votes to the Florida count, with about 70 percent, or 10,500 votes, being for President Bush, studies predict. That would give Bush 6,000 more votes than Sen. John Kerry.

Both Bush and Al Gore gathered more than 2.9 million votes in 2000 in Florida. On the other hand, 6,000 votes is more than 10 times the 2000 margin of victory.

Ballots already mailed While early indications are that the Pentagon has made a major push to ensure voting opportunities for soldiers, the system may not be flawless.

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said that during a tour of Iraq as part of a congressional delegation last week she saw glitches in soldiers getting ballots. She said she also saw signs of a robust military vote under way.

"Some Texas soldiers were telling us that the ballots they requested were slow in coming in, that they hadn't received them," Jackson Lee said. "If they don't get the ballots by Election Day, they'd have the option of a federal write-in ballot, but filling that out is not an easy task for soldiers out on convoy duty." The congresswoman wrote a letter of inquiry about the military overseas ballots to Texas Secretary of State Geoffrey Connor.

Bill Kenyon, a spokesman for Connor, said Texas soldiers overseas who requested a ballot were mailed one no later than Oct. 8. "We received (Jackson Lee's) letter about this on Oct. 13. Some of the ballots may not have reached Baghdad by then. But we monitored this closely, and every county reported the ballots had been mailed out by Oct. 8," he said.

Soldiers can download ballots off the Internet, but not all have computer access.

Jackson Lee said she also saw evidence of the military's efforts to facilitate the vote. "There was a voting assistance officer with each unit, making a point of encouraging people to vote. They are trying to make sure that all who wanted to vote could vote," she said.

"I saw no outward campaigning. There is obviously support for both candidates there. But the soldiers seemed to consider their vote very private."

Previous problems The military's effort to ensure voting rights for soldiers has not been without setbacks.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon was forced to scrap a $22 million effort to set up Internet voting after it was determined that the system could be hacked, threatening the integrity of votes.

The drive to improve the military voting process followed a scathing report by the Government Accountability Office, issued in the fall of 2001, that estimated more than four times as many military absentee ballots as overall civilian ballots were thrown out because of problems â?? more than 8 percent of the service member vote.

The author of that GAO study, Derek Stewart, credited the military with responding to the GAO recommendations in important ways. "We are happy to report that the Pentagon has assigned voting assistance officers much more comprehensively than in 2000," Stewart said. "We are hearing that there are rallies and posters encouraging soldiers to vote and that, at every assembly, service members are told to see voting assistance officers if they have questions."

Stewart said the GAO will do another study of the military voting process after the Nov. 2 election.

Polls show Bush favored A recent study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that 94 percent of the members of the military said they intended to vote in the election. And there were strong signs that Bush would draw many of those votes. Three times as many members of the military had a favorable opinion of Bush than of Kerry: 69 percent to 23 percent.

Noriega said the military has discouraged partisan campaigning and electioneering signs among troops. Aside from banter among tent mates, he said, it has been a private process.

Votes from Iraq and Afghanistan already are arriving in closely contested states, including Ohio, said Carlo LoParo, a spokesman for the Ohio secretary of state. While state rules vary a bit, most allow military voters a several-day grace period to get their ballots in, allowing for the delay in mail.

In Ohio, for example, results are unofficial Nov. 2. "Ten days later, after all overseas military votes are in, the results will be certified," LoParo said.

Bush won Ohio in a close race in 2000, getting about 5 percent more of the vote than Gore. But the margin was 165,000 votes.

One part of the debacle of the 2000 election in Florida revolved around military votes that trickled in more than a week past Election Day.

Since then, the state has adopted a number of measures to make sure military votes count, said Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman in the secretary of state's office.

"You can request a ballot by phone, fax or e-mail now," she said. "The completed ballot can be mailed back or faxed back. When an overseas voter signs and dates the ballot, the law presumes that is the date of the vote, not when it is postmarked. And signed ballots don't need to be witnessed."
Torog Reviewed by Torog on . Military Turnout Could Tip Some State's Scales Military turnout could tip some states' scales Houston Chronicle ^ | October 24, 2004 | MICHAEL HEDGES, Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - The enthusiasm of Afghans casting their first votes earlier this month made Maj. Rick Noriega of the Texas National Guard even more appreciative of his chance to participate in the upcoming U.S. election from just outside Kabul. "It was very inspiring, very humbling, watching people vote in the first real election here ever, stretching back to the Rating: 5