President Obama signed S.1390 on Wednesday, October 28. This is the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act, contained within the Defense Authorization Bill. The Voter Empowerment Act tells states that in federal elections, they must mail overseas absentee ballots no later than 45 days before the election.
Like the Help America Vote Act of 2002, and the Motor Voter Act of 1993, this new bill is one more instance in which the federal government is slowly setting national uniform standards for the nation for federal election administration. The United States and Switzerland are the only nations in the world in which the laws for administering elections for the national elections are written by various subunits of that nation. As the trend continues, it seems more plausible that Congress will eventually set a federal standard for ballot access for Presidential and Congressional candidates.
In New York like other states, the state board of elections will have to determine how this new law affects state and local election time frames for those absentee ballots.
Michael H. Drucker
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