Senate Democrats Block Measures To Protect Military Voters Once Again

Press Release

Senate Democrats Block Measures To Protect Military Voters Once Again

Cornyn express disappointment with Democrats' refusal to reform military voting system despite earlier agreement

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, expressed his disappointment Thursday after Senate Democrats blocked a critical military voting measure that they had agreed to earlier this week during good-faith negotiations on the Defense Authorization bill. Throughout floor consideration of that bill earlier this week, Sen. Cornyn had pushed for inclusion of a measure that would make needed, common-sense improvements to our outdated military voting system. Yet, today, Senate Democrats blocked this compromise legislation, refusing to allow it to move forward even after it had been agreed to by Senators in both parties, including both committees of jurisdiction, the Rules and Armed Services Committees.

"It is regrettable the majority party has chosen this course of action. As demonstrated by recent reports, there is much work to be done to ensure every military service member gets his or her vote counted. My bill would take several steps to significantly improve the process of delivering military absentee ballots from overseas to ensure every vote matters. I cannot understand why Senate Democrats have dug in their heels on an issue involving our troops' civil rights and repeatedly refused to address a problem that cries out for a solution. The Majority party's decision to stonewall this important bill, aimed at protecting one of the most fundamental civil rights of our men and women in uniform - the right to vote - is frankly beyond me.

"If we can't find some way to come together on a bipartisan basis to pass noncontroversial voting rights protection for our military service members overseas, then I'd say there's not a lot of hope for passing other equally important legislation. Our men and women deserve the government's very best efforts to give them the opportunity to participate in our democratic process, and I will not be satisfied until I see a process in place that gives all eligible uniformed voters a reasonable opportunity to vote. I am certainly disappointed by the actions of the Democrat leadership, but our troops overseas are the ones who are being cheated and disenfranchised in huge numbers - as shown by appalling statistics from recent federal elections," Sen. Cornyn said.

Background

Originally introduced as a stand-alone bill in May, the Military Voting Protection Act (MVP Act), S.3073, would take several steps to significantly improve the process of delivering military absentee ballots to ensure every vote matters. This legislation currently has 30 Senate co-sponsors.

In August, Sen. Cornyn sent a letter to Gen. Mukasey, signed by more than two dozen colleagues in the Senate and House, following the release of disturbing statistics by the Election Assistance Committee regarding military voting in recent elections, including:

* Only 59 percent of surveyed military service members knew where to obtain voting information on base - and only 40 percent had received voting information or assistance from a Voting Assistance Officer;
* Only 16.5 percent of the six million eligible military and overseas voters requested an absentee ballot for the November 2006 election;
* Only one-third of the requested ballots were cast and counted. In other words, only 5.5 percent of the total eligible military and overseas citizen voters cast a ballot in the November 2006 election.

Source