Executive Committee Meeting - February 6, 2010

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Texas Military Absentee Voting Proposal…

Texas has voter-friendly early voting laws. These have boosted turnout over the last few elections. Most Texans have taken advantage of these laws during recent elections.

Why don’t we make military absentee voting as "voter friendly" as the early voting law for us at home in Texas?

FACTS:

► Texas has 227,234 citizens in uniform claiming Texas as their voting residence – by Dept of Defense (DoD) census. There are approximately 1.5 million members in uniform according to DoD. That means Texas is the voting residence for 15% of the military. This is more than Florida (12%), California (8%), Washington state (3%) and Pennsylvania (3%).

► There is an effort at the Federal level to modify laws for overseas voters. Seems that legislation with the two sequential letters "OV" implies overseas voters. This is great!!! There are estimates circulating that 25-30% of the uniformed services may be in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and other places around the globe. Please remember, using the numbers above and we look at 30% of those claiming TX as their voting residence, that leaves a mathematical complement of 70% who are left out of the opportunity to receive an unmarked ballot by email. In this example, that amounts to 227,234 X 0.70 = 159,064 voters in CONUS who are being ignored. Let’s take better care of Texans!!!

► Several states allow military absentees to receive unmarked ballots by email: Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin.

► Several states allow military absentees to return marked ballots by email: Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina and Utah.

PROPOSAL:

Apply these to registered military voters EITHER in the Continental United States (CONUS) or outside the Continental United States (OCONUS). Permit these voters access to the system:

1. Registered military voters to have an unmarked ballot sent to them regardless of email address.

2. Registered (or recently registered voters who registered by email) who are hospitalized regardless of email address.

3. Registered military voters (i.e., Navy, other services) on strategic patrol for three-, four- or up to seven months, regardless of email address.

4. Registered military voters who are away from "home station" for training/courses or extended exercises, regardless of email address.

5. Dependents of registered military voters to include: spouses, dependent children (18 or if "living at home" or attending full-time courses of education, or parents if applicable, regardless of email address.

This is NOT ELECTRONIC VOTING!!! This proposal refers to providing an UNMARKED ballot (*.pdf) by email.

ACTION:

Call your state Senators (Lieutenant Governor) and Representatives (Speaker of the House) and urge them to add this to the Interim Charge for the 2011 Legislative Session.