LANSING – State Representative Dan Scripps (D-Leland) today voted for a comprehensive plan that will make it easier for troops stationed overseas to vote by absentee ballot and help ensure their ballots are returned to their communities in time to be counted. The plan passed the House and now awaits Senate action.
"Our men and women in uniform make enormous sacrifices every day to protect our way of life," said Scripps, a member of the House Ethics and Elections Committee and co-sponsor of the package. "One of our most cherished freedoms is the right to choose our own, freely elected leaders. The fact that many of our soldiers serving overseas are unable to exercise that right is unconscionable."
In the 2008 presidential election, more than a quarter of the ballots requested by U.S. military members stationed abroad and other American voters overseas went uncollected or uncounted, according to Congressional Research Services. In Michigan, of the nearly 21,300 overseas ballots sent, only 15,407 were returned in time to be counted.
The House plan will help ensure that military personnel and citizens living overseas can vote in time by:
- Allowing for fast, e-mail transmission of absentee ballots to service members stationed overseas. The service members would then print them, fill them out and mail them back to the clerk.
- Requiring all absentee ballots to be delivered to clerks for distribution at least 45 days in advance of all elections.
- Giving local governments more time to print out ballots in order to send them to military personnel.
Thirty-two other states already allow for the electronic transmission of absentee ballots to voters.
"Especially as Veterans Day approaches, it's a good time to recommit to doing better for our military men and women," Scripps said. "They deserve the same rights as every other American – it's that simple. When one in four ballots sent overseas doesn't make it back home in time, it's clear that we need change and we need it now."