Can I Vote from a Military Conflict Zone?

This interview was originally published by U.S. Vote Foundation (us.vote) as part of their overseas voter series. Dr. Inbody serves on the advisory board of U.S. Vote Foundation.

American military service members and families are deployed all over the world. Dr. Donald S. Inbody explains how they fulfill their civic duty to vote even if they are in a conflict zone.

Voting While at War

United States military service members serve to protect American rights and freedoms. While deployed, can they continue to participate in one of the most sacred American rights — voting? Yes, military personnel are eligible to vote from anywhere, including military conflict zones. American service members carry their right to vote wherever they go.

Interview

US.VOTE: What concerns did you emphasize with the Presidential Commission on Election Administration in 2013?

My principal finding was that, while local election officials have essentially solved the problem of getting an unmarked ballot to the individual overseas, the real problem is getting a marked ballot back to the appropriate election administrator in time to be counted.

Emailing the unmarked ballot eliminates the mailing time getting the ballot to the voter, but still requires some means of getting it back once marked. All of that requires the voter to have access to a printer.

US.VOTE: How has military voting changed over the past decade?

There has been little change over the past decade. The MOVE Act of 2009 required precincts to have all ballots available at least 45 days before the election. I wrote a short piece about this for the Washington Post back in 2015.

US.VOTE: What has your research revealed about political participation and military voters?

Military personnel vote essentially as do the general population. Most research shows that officers tend to vote Republican while the enlisted ranks tend to be more evenly distributed. Most of the behavior can be explained by usual demographic predictive factors.

US.VOTE: Would you highlight the role military absentee voting played in creating absentee voting for civilians?

It was not possible to vote anywhere other than one's home precinct until the opening months of the American Revolution, when a group of soldiers from New Hampshire asked their hometown if they could cast votes in a local election — perhaps the first documented case of absentee voting in America.

The dam broke in 1862 during the American Civil War. Three methods were used:

1. Vote by proxy — the soldier designated an individual to cast a ballot in their name.
2. Vote by ballot — the soldier was provided a ballot in the field and had it sent back by mail or courier.
3. Voting in the field — states sent election commissioners into the camps where their regiments were stationed.

Of those three, only absent voting remains in use today. The ability for civilians based overseas to vote did not arrive until the Uniformed and Overseas Civilians Voting Act of 1986.

US.VOTE: What are your predictions about the future of voting for active-duty service personnel?

I expect the technical and security issues with voting over the internet will be resolved in the next decade. In the meantime, the principal solution is to maintain education programs about how to access the voting systems of the various states and territories, and to insist that elected officials take seriously the ability of Americans overseas to access the electoral system without undue restrictions or barriers.

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Originally published by U.S. Vote Foundation. Dr. Inbody is the author of The Soldier Vote: War, Politics, and the Ballot in America (Palgrave Macmillan) and serves on the advisory board of U.S. Vote Foundation.