Marked and Missed

Every general election, a measurable number of valid military and overseas ballots are rejected for one reason: the mail did not move fast enough. The ballot was marked in time. It was dropped in the mail in time. It arrived at the county courthouse too late.

I have just finished a paper on this problem. The short version is straightforward. The federal framework for absentee voting by service members and overseas citizens works at the front end. Blank ballots reach voters. The back end is where it breaks. Marked ballots must make the return trip, and the mail does not always cover that distance within state deadlines. Across more than a decade of Election Assistance Commission and Federal Voting Assistance Program data, late arrival has been the single most common reason a UOCAVA ballot goes uncounted.

Most states have addressed the gap with grace periods. A ballot postmarked by Election Day and received within some defined window after is counted. The voter's deadline does not change. The receipt deadline at the election office does. That window is what makes the 45-day transmission rule under UOCAVA work in practice for a voter on a ship at sea or at a forward operating base.

The grace period is now before the Supreme Court. Watson v. Republican National Committee was argued in March 2026, and a decision is expected by the close of the October 2025 term. The Solicitor General has urged the Court to hold that the federal election-day statutes preempt state grace periods generally, treating UOCAVA as a narrow statutory exception for the defined class of voters it covers. If the Court affirms the Fifth Circuit broadly, fourteen or more states will need to revise their receipt deadlines. The rejection rate among military and overseas voters will rise. The data make that prediction available with reasonable confidence.

Electronic return is not a substitute. The cybersecurity consensus across the National Academies, the CISA/EAC/FBI/NIST interagency assessment, and independent academic review points in the same direction: under the current threat environment, electronic return of marked ballots in federal elections is not yet adequately secure. Paper remains the only viable return channel.

The recommendation of the paper is direct. Whatever the Court decides in Watson, Congress should enact a federal UOCAVA grace period by statute. A window of no fewer than ten days after Election Day, with a postmark requirement, would settle the matter for the military and overseas population. The Solicitor General's position already treats UOCAVA as a narrow exception. Congress should make that exception explicit and adequate.

The full paper is here: Marked and Missed: Mail, Deadlines, and the Military Vote.