Cornyn Makes Renewed Push For Senate to Act on Military Voting Measure

Press Release

New Pew Report Released Today Further Highlights Problems Facing Military Voters

In the wake of a new report released today by the Pew Center for the States that highlights the "complex process" facing overseas military voters and their substantially lower election participation rates, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, again called on the Senate Democratic leadership today to allow a vote on his amendment to reform and strengthen the military voting system. Sen. Cornyn has been seeking a vote on this amendment to the Defense Authorization bill but to date, it has been blocked by the Senate Democratic leadership.

"America was built on the values of democracy, fairness and freedom. It should outrage every American that many of the men and women serving to defend those values are being denied one of our nation's most basic and cherished rights - the right to vote and have that vote counted. I cannot understand why the Senate Democratic leadership would continue to block consideration of a bill that would directly reform and improve our military voting system," Sen. Cornyn said. "Our men and women in uniform make tremendous sacrifices in the defense of freedom and the American way of life. They deserve the U.S. government's very best efforts to promote and protect their voting rights. To block or otherwise oppose this legislation, as the postal unions have asked numerous members to do, would be to put a narrow special interest ahead of the civil rights of our troops overseas. That would be an outrage."

Sen. Cornyn's amendment is based on the Military Voting Protection Act of 2008 (MVP Act), S. 3073, which he originally introduced in May. His bill currently has 30 Senate co-sponsors but Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid has not indicated he will allow it to move forward. Among other provisions, Sen. Cornyn's bill would reduce delays and red tape in the absentee voting system currently in place for our overseas troops by requiring the Department of Defense to collect and provide for express shipping of their completed absentee ballots.

The problems for military voters were highlighted in a report released today by the Pew Center. The "Military and Overseas Citizen Voting Project" notes that "by almost every measure, military and overseas voter participation in the 2006 federal elections was substantially lower than the general population's." The Pew report attributes this low participation rate to a "complex process" for military voters, stating, "Service members want to vote, but are forced to navigate a laborious, complex and failure-prone system in order to exercise the right to vote."

This report echoes recent findings by the Election Assistance Commission in its 2007 survey report, which reported that, out of the 992,034 military and overseas absentee ballots requested for the 2006 election, over 660,000 of these ballots never reached election officials to be counted. Of the marked ballots that reached election officials but were rejected for various reasons, nearly 10 percent of these were refused because they were received after the deadline. Sen. Cornyn's amendment will address these problems head-on.

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