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GREENSBORO — An overwhelming majority of military and overseas voters did not return ballots to the United States in 2006, costing local election offices staff time and money.

The cost is easily thousands of dollars in North Carolina. And the expense grows into the millions as that law is applied to election offices across the country.

The reason is Congress, prodded by the Department of Defense, which passed a law making local election offices automatically send ballots for two years when a military or overseas U.S. citizen requests an absentee ballot.

Nationwide in 2006, 660,000 of 990,000 ballots never made it back, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, which runs the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

George Gilbert, the director of the Guilford County Board of Elections, wants to see a change in the two-year rule.

“There’s no point in mailing a ballot to an undeliverable address,” said Gilbert, who heads the legislative committee for the National Association of Election Officials.

Military deployments can last for months and then soldiers can be deployed somewhere else. But election offices continue to send ballots to new locations for two years if the address is not updated.

And calling the local election office is not something people typically think to do during a move, Gilbert said.

Another reason for the wasted ballots is the varying level of interest in elections.

Voter turnout typically runs high for presidential elections, but midterm and municipal elections receive less attention.
Under the current rule, military personnel overseas who ask for ballots in the presidential years also receive ballots for municipal and all other elections, whether they want them or not.

“It was a good intention act upon the part of Congress to help military voters get absentee ballots,” said Don Wright, general counsel for the N.C. State Board of Elections. “But the reality of military mobility has shown the process not to work.”

Gilbert said his office, under the law, mailed 482 military and overseas ballots for Greensboro’s Oct. 6 municipal primary. Only seven of those have been returned.

A week of labor for two election officials, at $14 an hour, and about $1,500 in postage went toward those ballots, Gilbert said.

“Pretty expensive for a dozen ballots that may get returned,” he said, adding that Cumberland County election officials likely have thousands of ballots that are never returned when Fort Bragg soldiers are deployed overseas.

The two-year rule is an attempt to get more overseas military and civilians involved in elections. It is a descendant of the 2002 Help America Vote Act, which was passed in response to the controversy surrounding the 2000 presidential election.

“It’s worth the effort and it’s worth the money,” said Gary Sims, deputy director of the Wake County Board of Elections.

Wake mailed 1,400 ballots for a municipal election this year. Fewer than 100 returned.

“And I’m very passionate about it. But the reality is people move and people get deployed to different address,” Sims said.
Even the Department of Defense sees the pitfalls but supports the current law.

Logistical problems will remain under the current system.

“You don’t know how many of those just never make it,” said Bob Carey, who became director of the Federal Voting Assistance Program in July.

Carey would like to have an electronic system for military and overseas voters.

A letter can go from Maine to Alaska in less than a week, he said, but mail can take a month to reach the farthest American deployments.
 

“But they’ll have e-mail access in two or three days,” Carey said.

Next week, he plans to meet with the National Association of Election Officials. Meanwhile, new legislation to amend voting laws is being considered in a congressional committee.

Both groups want voting to be easier.

“I want to work myself out of a job,” Carey said. “I want to get this system so transparent and so easy for the voter.”

Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008 or gerald.witt@news-record.com