“Democracy at a Distance: A Summit to Make Voting Work for Military and Overseas Voters”,convened by the Pew Center on the States, in collaboration with the JEHT Foundation, took place in Washington earlier this week. Notably, a new bipartisan Tarrance/Lake poll was released at the summit. The poll:
… found 96% of Americans believe it’s important that these voters [Military and overseas voters] get the chance to participate and vote in U.S. elections. The poll results also show that 81% of Americans favor creating a uniform national set of rules for military and overseas voters.
Also at the summit, the Overseas Vote Foundation launched “two new balloting solutions designed to address the weakest points in the overseas and military voting process: ballot delivery to the voter and “voted” ballot return to election officials.”
The Express Your Vote program with FedEx essentially allows Americans abroad (in 89 countries) to send their ballots home via FedEx for free or at steep discounts. In Sweden, where I live, the cost is $23.50. Naturally, going through FedEx gives voters confidence that their ballots will arrive in a timely fashion. More than that though, using FedEx, voters can track their ballot and see when it arrives.
OVF also launched a new online Vote-Print-Mail Ballot System, a tool developed with support from The Pew Charitable Trusts that allows voters to complete the Federal Write-In Absentee Ballot (FWAB) more easily and with fewer errors. As many may already know, the FWAB is the form used when one has requested an absentee ballot but has not yet received it. The Vote-Print-Mail Ballot System is an immediate solution for voters whose ballots are late or lost and transforms the otherwise cryptic FWAB into a user-friendly online process. What’s more, the system automatically matches zip codes to voting districts and generates federal candidate lists. Voters simply select their candidates and then download, print, sign and send the completed FWAB.
