[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 27, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H414-H415]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




HOUSE MUST ADDRESS ISSUE OF INTENTIONAL DISENFRANCHISEMENT OF MILITARY 
                                  VOTE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOSS. Madam Speaker, I had the great privilege and honor to 
travel with colleagues during this past Presidents' break under the 
leadership of the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bereuter) to visit 
parliamentarians who deal with NATO concerns. As most Americans know, 
we have valuable partners overseas providing defense for peace and 
well-being all across the Atlantic, including the North American 
countries and our allies and friends overseas in Europe. We get 
together a couple of times a year to examine policy and, of course, at 
this time there is a great deal of interest in the new administration 
and where it is going. We had useful meetings, timely meetings, and 
there will be reports coming forth on those in time.
  I wanted to speak about an aspect of the trip we took this time that 
I think is more important, because there is some business for our 
House. As is customary, we quite often visit our troops when we are out 
in these areas. We go to remote areas, places like the Sinai on this 
trip, and dangerous areas, places like the Balkans; and we go to 
support areas, places like Italy and places where there are active 
operations in places like Turkey where our troops are flying, our Air 
Force. We talk to our troops. We get right out there; we do not get 
just the red carpet treatment talking to the officers. We talk to the 
men and women in uniform, hearing what their gripes are, their 
concerns, worries and wants; and we try to get the message back to them 
to say thanks for what they are doing. We talk to the Army, Marines, 
Air Force, and Coast Guard when we are in those places.
  There was a lot of concern this time in our conversations with the 
troops; but we did find a common thread on a subject that this House 
needs to do something about, and that was the fact that their vote was 
not counted in the last election. There is a concern out there that the 
extra efforts they took, because it is tough to get their votes cast 
when they are involved in military duty, because they are doing things 
in remote parts of the world and it is not like the pleasures that we 
have and the convenience and the logistics we have, just going and 
casting our votes on Election Day in this country or even doing an 
absentee ballot in this country. It is very complicated for them.
  So the fact that their vote may have been thrown out is particularly 
disturbing to them, whether it was because of technical problems like 
the postmarks on the ballots or the rules for witnesses or whether or 
not there are time deadlines that could not be managed and so forth 
because of where they were. These are correctable things, and between 
the work of the States and the supervisors of elections at the local 
level and the Federal-level rules, I think we can get this corrected 
and taken care of.
  Madam Speaker, what troubled the troops the most was that there are 
apparently some people who actively wanted to disenfranchise the 
military vote because it did not measure up ideologically with the 
views of their candidate. Unfortunately, as we read in Florida, and I 
am proud to represent a good part of Florida, southwest Florida, we 
read public reports in the newspaper that indeed, efforts were under

[[Page H415]]

way to disenfranchise intentionally the military vote because it might 
turn the election in a different direction. That, of course, is 
extremely odious.
  Madam Speaker, I hope this Congress will take steps to make clear 
once and for all that the sense of this body and the people who 
represent the people of the United States of America find this 
particularly odious, especially when we understand that the risk, the 
separations, the hardship, the work that our troops are doing around 
the world, that many of us just take for granted. When you are out 
there and see it firsthand and talk to these folks, you are proud; and 
to think that somebody would actively say, we are not sure we want to 
have their vote counted because it might not help my candidate, is, 
certainly, misguided.
  So we have work to do on this. I urge my colleagues to pay attention 
to this and support legislation when it comes forward. I am proud of 
our troops overseas, and I know every single Member of this body is 
too.

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