The voting rights of all legally eligible voters in the United States deserve to be protected. But nowhere should that right be guarded more vigorously than in the U.S. armed forces. Those who have signed up to help defend our country should be assured of their right to vote, no matter where they may be stationed.
Unfortunately, our soldiers serving overseas have too often not been able to vote because, through no fault of their own, their ballots have been shipped to them too late.
A 2009 law enacted by Congress may be changing that, though. The law requires the mailing of absentee ballots 45 days prior to Election Day to U.S. citizens who wish to vote from abroad.
As an apparent result of the law, about 46 percent of the military voted in the 2010 midterms. That was an encouraging 21 percent increase from the 2006 midterms, according to news accounts.
That’s obviously a significant improvement, but there is still a ways to go. The Federal Voting Assistance Program, which handles the distribution of absentee ballots to U.S. troops and their spouses, noted that about 112,000 military voters in 2010 still did not receive their requested ballots.
Every effort should be made to remedy that situation — and to ensure that our brave men and women in uniform are able to vote along with the rest of us.