Making your vote count from overseas
With our partners, Count Every Hero - many thanks to them for their support!
Written by a WtV Board Member
It was September of a Presidential Election year – but voting was the last thing on my mind. It was also my first semester at the Naval Academy and I was overwhelmed with academics and learning military life. Thank goodness for a Midshipman I met one day. She was assigned as the Company voting officer, and one Sunday after evening meal, she brought all of us freshman out into the hallway to register to vote and request an absentee ballot.
Without her help that year, I doubt I would have summoned the mental energy to figure out the process. That was over 25 years ago, and although some things are easier these days – the internet makes information more available, email ensures your ballot arrives more quickly – there are still many impediments to voting for military members, military family and overseas Americans.
Here’s a shocking statistic: only 47% of our military population voted in the 2020 election, compared to 74% of the general population. Complicated bureaucracy; changing rules; state-by-state differences in voting rules: any of these could be the reason that military members are less likely than the general public to vote in our elections. (Read more about military voting at https://www.fvap.gov/info/reports-surveys/StateoftheMilitaryVoter).
At We the Veterans, we support all initiatives that assist our active-duty military members and families to vote. Voting is the greatest of our civic rights and We the Veterans, a non-profit devoted to strengthening our democracy through bolstering our veteran population’s civic understanding and involvement, is committed to strengthening our military’s access to absentee ballots. It is our great privilege to support enfranchisement for a population who will literally give their lives for our voting freedom.
To help address the frustrations with overseas voting, in late August 2020, a group of retired flag officers, general officers, and former military service secretaries came together and formed Count Every Hero. According to Admiral Steve Abbot (USN, Ret), “Count Every Hero’s purpose was to advocate for active duty military members to get the opportunity to vote and to ensure that their vote was counted. We wrote op-eds, made videos and did interviews with media. There is no way to know what impact our efforts may have had, but we note that voting by active duty personnel increased in the 2020 election. We had expected to disband Count Every Hero following the election. But the post-election turmoil caused us to reconsider, and we have remained active in the effort to strengthen our democracy. We focus on issues with the electoral system that affect our currently-serving and our veterans and their families. We concentrate our efforts on electoral matters that have national security implications. One of those efforts is to support the initiative by We the Veterans to encourage veterans and their family members to volunteer as poll workers. I'm proud to say I will be serving on November 8 as a new election officer in Precinct 132nd in Arlington, VA.“
There are many ways you can help ensure military members are able to vote, even while away from their home voting districts.
1 – volunteer as a Voting Assistance Officer to assist overseas military and diplomatic mission Americans in voting absentee (more information at https://www.fvap.gov/vao)
2 – volunteer as a US-based poll worker through www.VetThe.Vote. Many military members are stationed away from their home of record and are eligible to vote absentee. Volunteering as a poll worker ensures that their vote is counted!
3 – check in with your military friends and family, to make sure they’ve requested their absentee ballot. If they are unsure of how to vote while overseas, direct them to the Federal Voting Assistance Program website at https://www.fvap.gov/ which contains a wealth of information about voting absentee, both domestically and internationally.
4 – Donate! We the Veterans is working hard to ensure ALL Americans get the chance to vote through our Vet the Vote campaign, but we need your help! https://vetthe.vote/pages/donate
5 – Most importantly, vote! Our military members and veterans fought for this important right, but its up to every citizen to exercise it.