Military ballots at risk in New York's special election

New York is holding a special election on November 3, 2009, to fill a vacant U.S. House seat. It is very likely that a substantial number of overseas military will not be able to have their vote counted in this election. A spokesperson for the Overseas Vote Foundation predicts that the federal government will soon sue New York again over this issue.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has recommended mailing absentee ballots to military voters at least 45 days before they are due. The Military Postal Service Agency recommended at least 60 days.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., alarmed by studies that showed 41 percent of military and overseas voters in Upstate New York (a total of 8,226 voters) did not have their ballots counted in 2008, proposed a reform bill in May.

Schumer’s bipartisan bill mandates that states send ballots out to military and absentee voters at least 45 days before the election. The legislation has passed the Senate, and awaits approval in the House.

Conklin, of the New York Board of Elections, said the state had no choice but to follow its own election laws after former Rep. John McHugh, R-Pierrepont Manor, resigned to become President Obama’s secretary of the Army on Sept. 21.

Voters’ rights advocates say potentially thousands of military voters from Upstate New York could be disenfranchised in what early polls indicate will be a tight, three-way race to pick the region’s next member of Congress due to the delay in mailing ballots and the time it will take to return them.

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Michael H. Drucker
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