IG says military procedures weren't
reason why ballots weren't counted
By Lisa Burgess,
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military’s procedures for handling absentee overseas
ballots were not the reason why many votes cast by military personnel were not counted in
the 2000 elections, according to a report issued by the Pentagon’s Inspector General
on Friday.
"The review did not find that our program failed or that there were systemic
breakdowns" in the military’s procedures to encourage absentee voting, said
Charles Abell, assistant secretary of defense for force management policy.
On Nov. 28, 2000, Secretary of Defense William Cohen asked the Inspector General (IG)
to review the military’s procedures for handling overseas absentee ballots and ballot
cancellation and postmarking procedures, after many overseas military personnel found that
their votes were not counted in the presidential election.
The IG report did not look into any of the specific instances in which military voters'
ballots were discounted in the 2000 election, Abell said.
"This audit is not a postmortem of the 2000 election," Abell said. "The
IG was asked to look at the effectiveness of the [military’s] voter assistance
program, and I think [the report] does that well."
Investigators from the IG’s office traveled to 27 overseas military installations
and spoke to 150 military voting assistance officers to gather data for the review, Abell
said.
The General Accounting Office — Congress’ watchdog agency — is working
on a report that investigates how and why military voters using absentee ballots were
disqualified in the 2000 elections. The GAO report is scheduled for release in September.
Disenfranchised military votes was one of the most contentious issues surrounding the
2000 presidential election, which was so close that votes cast in a single state, Florida,
became the determining factor that brought George W. Bush to the White House.
The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act requires states to allow
military personnel and U.S. citizens who will be overseas during elections to register and
vote as absentees. But states are allowed to make their own rules regarding absentee
voting procedures. Some states allow a grace period for absentee votes to come in and be
counted, as long as the ballots are postmarked on or before Election Day.
In September 2000, there were about 257,800 active duty personnel, 117,600 voting-age
dependents and 86,600 Defense Department civilians located overseas. A record 72 percent
of those individuals cast ballots in the presidential elections, Abell said.
But thousands of military voters, particularly sailors assigned to ships, found that
their ballots were discarded for one reason or another — often because the envelopes
lacked postmarks to prove that the vote was cast on or before the Nov. 4 deadline.
Military postal regulations require all first-class mail to bear postmarks, according
to Navy Capt. Eugene DeCom, deputy director of the Military Postal Service Agency.
However, for various reasons, military mail is sometimes not postmarked, Abell said.
The problem is not widespread, he said.
"We may have had an individual who needed more training or failed to perform on a
given day," Abell said. But "the IG did not find a place where the system
failed" to ensure postmarks are in place.
In Florida, enough military absentee ballots arrived after Election Day to affect the
outcome of the national election — a total of 3,733 by Nov. 17, 2000.
Republicans accused Democrats of illegally suppressing the Florida absentee military
ballots because military personnel historically vote the GOP ticket. After intense legal
wrangling, many of the military votes were eventually counted.
Abell said he did not know how many of the military’s votes were disqualified in
2000 because of errors on the part of military postal clerks. Nor did he know the details
of why many states did not accept military absentee ballots.
"What individual states did or did not do with the ballots is not the subject of
this [IG] report," Abell said. "Hopefully, the GAO report will get to
this."
In the meantime, the IG report has made several recommendations for improving the
military’s voter assistance program, "and we’re going to follow all of the
recommendations," Abell said.
"We are working with the military postal service to revise postmarking
[procedures] on all first-class mail," he added.
Abell said other measures to improve the absentee voting system will include
"redoubling training and awareness" for military voting assistance officers;
taking advantage of Internet voting and other high-tech approaches that allow voters to
cast their ballots without using the postal service; and establishing fixed centers at all
military installations, including ships, dedicated to helping overseas military personnel
vote.
"It is our duty to ensure that every vote counts," Abell said.
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