LANSING – State Representatives Jennifer Haase (D-Richmond) and Sarah Roberts (D-St. Clair Shores) today voted for a comprehensive plan to make it easier for troops stationed overseas to vote by absentee ballot and to help ensure their ballots are returned to their communities in time to be counted.
"Our military men and women put their lives on the line every day to protect our freedoms – including our right to vote," said Haase, Vice Chair of the House Ethics and Elections Committee and a sponsor of the plan. "The least we can do is to make sure that they have the opportunity to exercise this right and participate in the very democracy they are risking their lives to defend."
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 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.
"The brave men and women who are risking their lives overseas to protect our freedom deserve to have their votes counted," said Roberts, Vice Chair of the House Military and Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security Committee. "Regardless of how far away our troops our stationed, we must give them the right to participate in the election process. It's vital that we stand up for those who are away from home and sacrificing so much for us."