Brennan Center for Justice

In 1966, the United States Supreme Court ruled
it was unconstitutional to require voters to pay a $1.50 poll tax to
vote.  In 2008, Americans living overseas—including members of the armed forces in Iraq
and Afghanistan—may have to fork over as much as $23.50 if they want to be sure their votes
count in November.

That's how much FedEx will
be charging
some overseas Americans to guarantee their absentee ballots will be delivered
in time to be counted.  But while $23.50
might seem like a steep price to pay for casting a ballot, the FedEx service—a joint initiative with the Overseas
Vote Foundation—is actually a step in the right direction.  The initiative offers steep discounts on FedEx's
normal rates, and means that Americans living abroad have at least one way to
guarantee their ballots make it back home in time to be counted.  That's more than they've had in the past.

To date, the rate of participation of overseas voters has
been abysmal—though not for a lack of trying. 
According to the U.S. Election
Assistance Commission, in the 2006 election, almost 1 million overseas
voters requested ballots, but only about a third of those were ever
counted:  two thirds of the uncounted
ballots were returned by the postal service without reaching the voters who'd
requested them, while 10 percent arrived too late to be counted.  All told, in 2006 only 5.5%
of the eligible voters overseas cast ballots that got counted.

Among the millions of Americans abroad who face high hurdles
to voting are our men and women in uniform. 
Things like delays in delivering mail to combat zones and frequent
transfers often make it difficult for members of the armed service to vote.
  Thankfully, some
states have taken recent
steps to make it easier for GIs stationed overseas to cast ballots.  But for those risking their lives on the
front lines, the chance to vote shouldn't depend on what state they're from. 

Federal reform is needed to guarantee that those fighting to
defend the right to vote have a meaningful opportunity to exercise it.

Some have proposed Internet
voting for our overseas military voters, but security concerns have kept
these proposals from getting off the ground.  A bill has been introduced in the House and Senate that would
require the Pentagon to contract with an express mail provider like FedEx to
collect the troops' absentee ballots. 
Thus far though, the bill, the Military Voting Protection Act of 2008, hasn't
made it out of committee. 

Not surprisingly, the issue's been politicized.  Republicans complain
that the Democrats aren't supporting their efforts to collect ballots from our
combat troops.  The Democrats respond that
there's not any Republican support for helping veterans vote.  That looks to some like strange politics in
2008, given polls
that show veterans leaning strongly Republican and signs of strong
support for the Democrats' presidential nominee among active duty soldiers,
sailors, airmen and marines.  But making
sure American veterans and combat troops can register and vote without
difficulty shouldn't be a matter of partisan politics in the first place.

It's long past time for Congress to take action to make it
easier for vets and combat troops to register and vote.  The bills are there.  It's the will that's apparently missing.