Challenges to military voting

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Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Absentee Voting.

It’s easy enough for those of us stateside, here in the United States to cast our ballots. But it’s not so easy for military servicemembers stationed oceans away, more than a million of them. For them, voting can be complicated.

REICHARD: The 2020 elections are an example of just how complicated. A government survey showed that one out of five of our soldiers, sailors, and Marines couldn’t complete the voting process. WORLD Senior Writer Kim Henderson brings us this report.

CLIP: CADENCE

KIM HENDERSON, SENIOR WRITER: Greg Marlow signed up to serve his country before he signed up to vote.

MARLOW: I had just gotten to Fort Knox, Kentucky. I was 19 years old. My friend and I were at the PX, and there was a guy standing up front, registering people to vote.

Marlow says he was surprised to learn he could vote—while serving away from home—using an absentee ballot. He registered on the spot.

MARLOW: I get this little packet in the mail, open it up. And I had like two days to get this thing mailed in.

Marlow was excited to be voting in a presidential election—Jimmy Carter against Ronald Reagan.

CARTER CAMPAIGN AD: I felt that Ronald Reagan wasn’t too good for education when he was governor of California. On November 4th, reelect President Carter.

That was a long time ago, but throughout his military career, Marlow continued to vote. And he encouraged his fellow soldiers to vote, too.

MARLOW: As a service member, you're not really able to speak your mind on politics and what you think is going on in the world. But you can voice your opinion when you vote.

Donald Inbody is a retired Navy captain. He says there’s a misunderstanding about voting in the military.

INBODY: . . . that somehow military personnel who are stationed overseas simply go to some voting booth on their base and cast their ballot. There's no such thing. The only way anyone overseas votes, military or civilian, is by absentee ballot, period.

That can be paper ballots, or for 33 states, electronic ones. Inbody says the main problem is getting the absentee ballots back in time. Other barriers come into play as well.

INBODY: It's not the commander's primary job to manage an election. I mean, that's not their main job. And also the soldiers, sailors, Marines, they're just not, they're busy. And then you add that to the fact that since the majority of the military is under the age of 30--the group that nationwide tends to not vote anyway.

Top that off with being stationed on a ship or in a combat zone with limited access to internet and mail. It makes voting tough.

INBODY: I don't think there is any nefarious effort out there to prevent military personnel from voting. It's just harder.

CLIP: CAMP SHELBY

Over in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, soldiers come from all across the United States to train at Camp Shelby.

COOKSEY: We call it the schoolhouse. So they'll come here for their continuing education.

That’s Lt. Col. Christopher Cooksey. He says soldiers at Camp Shelby this week were encouraged to cast their ballots early.

COOKSEY: We know something is important to the Army when they create a regulation, and the Army actually has a regulation, its army regulations. 608-20, which is called the Army Voting Assistance Program.

The regulation requires Army leadership to promote voting among the ranks and to assist soldiers in their voting efforts. Even so, reports show that only half of active duty military members voted in the last major election. Cooksey has served on ships as a young Marine, and on other continents as a soldier. Voting in those spots took special effort.

COOKSEY: We joke when we're overseas, there's really never a day off, and you're going real fast. And you want it that way, because it makes the time pass. But you can lose sight of the elections and the politics.

He remembers being in Kuwait. The chow hall was full of signs: wash your hands, cover your mouth. He wonders if they put up signs to promote voting in this election cycle.

COOKSEY: I hope commanders did because it's important. We really have to stress to them, “Hey, this is what you're here for. This is what you fought for.”

The Defense Department provides free expedited mail service for military ballots. A special blue express label gives voters the opportunity to track delivery all the way to their county election office.

The Federal Voting Assistance Program offers voting assistance officers and phone alerts with deadline reminders.

But Cooksey says none of those efforts can compete with the military’s best way of encouraging its members to vote. And that’s the opportunity it gives servicemen and women to see up close what voting means to citizens of other countries.

COOKSEY: I was there when the Iraqi people had their first, probably, fair and free election. And watching those people come out with that blue ink on their finger. That was one of the proudest moments of my career. And I think that we lose sight of how valuable the right to vote is in this country sometimes.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in South Mississippi.

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