[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 27]
[Senate]
[Page 36360]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            ABSENTEE VOTING

  Mr. BAYH. Mr. President, I wish to speak about the importance of 
counting the votes of military personnel and American citizens living 
abroad. These votes--defined as Uniformed and Overseas Citizens 
Absentee Voting Act votes, UOCAVA--are consistently neglected.
  According to an Elections Assistance Commission, EAC, report issued 
in September, less than 17 percent of the estimated 6 million 
potentially eligible overseas voters sought to participate in the 2006 
elections. This concerns me greatly. Further, of the 992,034 requested 
overseas ballots in 2006, only 333,179 were actually counted--leaving 
potentially more than 66 percent of overseas voters that wanted to vote 
in 2006 disenfranchised.
  In June, the GAO released a report that urged the EAC, and other 
Federal agencies, to better serve our UOCAVA voters. I believe that the 
EAC has an opportunity to rectify this situation now.
  The fiscal year 2008 Omnibus appropriations bill includes $115 
million that will be distributed to the States so that they can proceed 
to implement the Help American Vote Act. All State and local elections 
officials are aware of the difficulties receiving and counting ballots 
from overseas military personnel and citizens living abroad. The 
Department of Defense, through the Federal Voting Assistance Program, 
continues to struggle with this problem.
  The EAC report recommends that states make a great effort to ensure 
that obstacles to voting experienced by members of the service members 
and citizens living abroad--including voter registration, ballot 
receipt, and ballot return--should be reduced, minimized, or 
eliminated. To this end, several States intend to use HAVA funds to 
implement plans that will allow them to better serve these severely 
disenfranchised voters. For these reasons, I urge the EAC to clearly 
notify interested States that HAVA funds are available to facilitate 
the voting process for UOCAVA voters. I further urge the EAC to 
distribute 2008 HAVA funding to those States as soon as possible, so 
that UOCAVA voters do not remain disenfranchised for the 2008 
elections.

                          ____________________